Human Development (Ch 9)

Question 1

What is developmental psychology?

Answer 1

examines how humans change over the course of their lives and considers which changes are shared across people and which are different, aims to understand how people grow and adapt within their cultures to become part of society

Question 2

Conception is when..

Answer 2

a sperm unites with an egg to create a zygote

Question 3

Two important aspects of brain development

Answer 3

1. specific areas within the brain mature and become functional
2. regions of the brain learn to communicate with one another through synaptic connections

Question 4

What is myelination?

Answer 4

It is the brain’s way of insulating its wires, nerve fibers are wrapped with a fatty sheath which increases speed of transmitted signals

Question 5

What is synaptic pruning?

Answer 5

The brain’s ability to preserve connections by eliminating neurons that aren’t needed

Question 6

What is plasticity?

Answer 6

The brain’s ability to reorganize itself in response to its environmental experiences

Question 7

How does nutrition affect brain development?

Answer 7

without adequate nutrition, the brain will be less sophisticated and less able to process complex information, solve problems, or develop advanced language skills

Question 8

True or false: Experiences such as stress, neglect, and exposure to violence can influence the development of human brains

Answer 8

True, stressful life experiences can lead to a wide range of mental and physical health disorders later in life

Question 9

What are teratogens and what do they do?

Answer 9

Teratogens are agents that harm the embryo or fetus and can lead to premature birth, birth defects, medical problems, (alcohol can lead to alcohol spectrum disorders)

Question 10

Dynamic systems theory

Answer 10

views development as a self-organizing process in which new forms of behavior emerge from the process of an organism repeatedly engaging and interacting with its environment and cultural contexts

Question 11

What information tells us that infants are born prepared to learn?

Answer 11

they are born with a preference to people over things, categorizing people, and their brain has specific neural circuits for identifying biological motion and inanimate object motion and identify faces and facial movement

Question 12

Visual acuity

Answer 12

ability to distinguish differences among shapes, patterns, and colors
(increase in visual acuity is due to the development of the visual cortex and development of the cones in the retina)

Question 13

What is Memory

Answer 13

the ability to retain explicit memories

Question 14

What is attachment?

Answer 14

strong, intimate, emotional connection between people that persists over time and across circumstances- building blocks of a successful social life
- very important to survival in many other species
- first stages in which a person learns how to communicate with others, and establish stable relationships

Question 15

What months do infants start to understand the difference between their attachment figures and strangers

Answer 15

8-12

Question 16

What hormone is responsible for attachment, social behaviors, and maternal tendencies?

Answer 16

Oxytocin

Question 17

Important aspects of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development

Answer 17

Viewed children as qualitatively different from adults and active learners

Children think the way they do because their views of how the world works are based on sets of assumptions that are different from those held by adults

Proposed that children form new schemes as they develop (ways of thinking)

Two learning processes:
Assimilation: a new experience is placed into an existing schema
Accommodation: a new scheme is created or an existing schema is dramatically altered to include new information that would otherwise not fit

Question 18

Piaget’s four stages of development

Answer 18

1. sensorimotor (0-2 years): differentiates self from objects, begins to act intentionally, achieves object permanence (realizes that things continue to exist even when no longer present to the senses)
2. Preoperational (2-7 years): learns to use language and to represent objects by images and words, thinking is egocentric, classifies objects by a single feature
3. Concrete Operational (7-12 years): can think logically about objects and events, achieves conservation of number, mass, and weight, classifies objects by several features and can order them in a series along a single dimension
4. Formal Operational (12 years old): can think logically about abstract propositions and test hypotheses systematically, becomes concerned with hypothetical, the future, and idealogical problems

Question 19

Why did people say that Piaget underestimated Children’s Cognitive Abilities?

Answer 19

• his framework leaves little room for differing cognitive strategies among kids and cultures
• many children move back and forth between stages if they are working on tasks that require carrying skill levels
• underestimated the age at which certain skills develop

Question 20

What did Vygotsky focus on?

Answer 20

Role of social and cultural context in the development of cognition and language

Question 21

What is the theory of mind?

Answer 21

The ability to infer what another person is feeling or thinking , coincides with the maturation of the brain’s frontal lobes

Question 22

What is prosocial behavior and when does it occur?

Answer 22

Voluntary action performed with the intent of benefiting another person; after 1 year of age

Question 23

What is Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development?

Answer 23

three main levels of moral reasoning:
1. preconventional: people classify answers in terms of self-interest or pleasurable outcomes
2. conventional: response conforms to the rules of law and order or focus on others’ dissaproval
3. postconventional: responses center around complex reasoning about abstract principles and the value of all life

Question 24

Inequity aversion

Answer 24

dislike of unfairness, begins at 19 months and strengthens throughout childhood

Question 25

puberty

Answer 25

onset of sexual maturity and thus the ability to reproduce; increases hormones to stimulate physical changes
- the brain also reorganizes itself during puberty, refining synaptic connections and grey matter is increased

Question 26

Who proposed the theory of psychosocial development?

Answer 26

Erik Erikson

Question 27

What are the stages of Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development?

Answer 27

1. infancy (0-1): trust vs mistrust
2. toddler (1-3): autonomy vs shame/doubt
3. preschool (3-6): initiative vs guilt
4. childhood (6-12): industry vs inferiority
5. adolescence (12-18): identity vs role confusion
6. young adulthood (18-29): intimacy vs isolation
7. middle adulthood (30-50s): generativity vs stagnation
8. old age (60s +): integrity vs despair

Question 28

Dementia

Answer 28

dramatic loss in mental ability, causes thinking, memory, and behavior to deteriorate progressively

Question 29

Alzheimers

Answer 29

Memory related neurotransmitter acetylcholine is very low in people with Alzheimers