Lifespan

Question 0

Developmental change

Answer 0

A relatively permanent or lasting change

Question 1

Lifespan psychology

Answer 1

Refers to age related changes that occur from birth, throughout a person’s life, into and during old age

Question 2

Stages of lifespan

Answer 2

• Infancy (0-2) create a bond with caregiver
• Childhood (2-10) gain more self control
• Adolescence (10/12-20/24) onset of puberty
• early adulthood (20-40) establish independence
• middle age (40-65) more responsibility
• older age (mid 60’s-end of life) new social roles undertaken

Question 3

Heredity

Answer 3

Involves the transmission of characteristics from biological parents to their offspring via genes at the time of conception

Question 4

Developmental change

Answer 4

Must be a relatively permanent or lasting change

Question 5

Areas of lifespan development

Answer 5

• emotional development
• cognitive development
• social development
• physical development

Question 6

Environment

Answer 6

Refers to all the experiences, objects and events to which we are exposed to throughout our entire lifetime

Question 7

Emotional development

Answer 7

Attachment theory

• Bowlby and Ainsworth
• human infants need a secure relationship with a caregiver in order for healthy emotional development to occur
• Harlow
• infant monkeys separated from their mothers had a preference for cloth mother over mesh mother
• contact comfort is crucial for human infant-parent attachment

Question 8

Cognitive development

Answer 8

Four stage theory

- Piaget

Question 9

Adaptation

Answer 9

The continuous process of using the environment to learn, and learning to adjust to the changes that occur in the environment

Question 10

Assimilation

Answer 10

The process of taking in new information and fitting it into and making it part of an existing mental idea about objects or the world
Eg. A young child may see a truck and call it a car

Question 11

Accommodation

Answer 11

Refers to changing an existing mental idea in order to fit new information
Eg. Developing a new category for truck after realising it doesn’t belong to the category of cars

Question 12

Schema

Answer 12

A mental idea, or organised representation of what something is and how to deal with it

Question 13

Piaget’s four stage theory, stages

Answer 13

• sensori-motor: birth-2 years: object permanence, goal-directed behaviour
• pre-operational: 2-7 years: egocentrism, animism, transformation, centration, reversibility
• concrete operational: 7-12 years: conservation, classification
• formal operational: 12+ years: abstract thinking, logical thinking

Question 14

Sensori-motor stage

Answer 14

Object permanence: an understanding that objects continuer to exist even when they are out of sight. Eg. Peek-a-boo

Goal-directed behaviour: the child begins to solve problems and carry out behaviour with a certain purpose in mind. Eg. Pull themselves up a table to get a toy

Question 15

Pre-operational stage

Answer 15

Egocentric: develop a thinking style that is characterised by self-centredness and an inability to consider the viewpoints of others

Transformation: understanding something can change from one stage to an other. Eg. Ice to water

Animism: believe if they can feel, so can every other object. Everything has some kind of awareness

Reversibility of thought: ability to follow a line of reasoning back to its original starting point

Centration: can only take into account one aspect or characteristic of an object

Question 16

Concrete operational stage

Answer 16

Conservation: mass, weight and volume remain unchanged when the shape of an object changes

Classification: able to place things that share similar features into categories

Question 17

Formal operations stage

Answer 17

Abstract principles: thinking that doesn’t rely on being able to see or visualise things in order to understand them

Logical thinking: develop strategies to solve problems, identify explanations and test solutions

Hypothetical possibilities: develop possibilities based on guess, prediction or speculation

Question 18

Psychological changes in the very old

Answer 18

Very old is those over 85

• cognitive changes
• psychosocial changes
• successful ageing

Question 19

Cognitive changes in very old

Answer 19

• difficulty separating relevant information from irrelevant information
• difficulty paying attention to more than one thing at a time
• slower at mentally processing information
• memory declines
• difficulty retaining information in conscious awareness when thinking about it

Question 20

Psychosocial changes in the very old

Answer 20

• if they view their past as meaningful and useful they will experience integrity and be more content in old age
• if they view their past with regret and bitterness they will experience despair, disappointment and are therefore less content
• tend to feel lonely as their social world shrinks when their friends and family pass away

Question 21

Successful ageing

Answer 21

Occurs when a very old person maximises and attains positive outcomes while minimising and avoiding negative outcomes

• selection
• optimisation
• compensation

Question 22

Selection (successful ageing)

Answer 22

Reduce numbers of goals they try and achieve, then prioritise goals

Question 23

Optimisation (successful ageing)

Answer 23

Involves making the most of abilities, resources and opportunities available to achieve the best outcome

Question 24

Compensation (successful ageing)

Answer 24

Developing new strategies to substitute for each of the losses