PSY321 2. Development Flashcards

Question

Reallocation of resources

Answer 1

Fruit hypothesis Extracting foraging methods Increased complexity of social world Why would the brain become bigger in homo sapiens versus other species. There are three general hypotheses for this. 1. We like to eat fruit. 2. we appreciate extraction type foods. 3. Increased complexity of the social world.

Answer 2

Primates like fruit good source of nutrition ``` Fruit is good only at certain time of year Remember Time Remember Location Remember Threat Manchineel ```

Answer 3

It is a common observation that primates generally tend to like fruit. It is a good source of water, vitamins, and minerals and much research shows that eating more fruits and vegetables every day actually makes you healthier in general and in terms of how you look. However, there are some difficulties in foraging fruit. There is fruit life cycle, meaning that different fruits grow in different climates, they grow in different seasons and some may be even poisonous to us humans. For example manchineel fruit in mexico can cause tears in tissue of the inner lining of the mouth and throat if injected! Aboriginal Caribbean people used to dip their arrows in the juices of the tree as poison. Thus, the first hypothesis suggests that people needed bigger brains to locate food. Not supported.

Answer 4

Primates like extractive food sources Rich in energy and proteins ``` Need to be creative to extract Remember Time Remember Location Remember Threat Need to Know How to Extract ```

Answer 5

The second hypothesis suggests that people needed bigger brains to extract the core of the nut from a hard shell or to find other food sources that necessitate extraction (termites) for example. Thus, humans needed bigger brains to come up with a number of creative methods to not only find the food sources, but also to extract the food. Not supported.

Answer 6

``` People need to remember relationships: Mating Cooperation Threats and Dangers Finally, the third hypothesis suggests that people started living in a more complex social world, needing to track their relationships with other people. As such, they needed greater memory capacity to predict other people’s behavior, to communicate, and to remember a great amount of social and relational information. Supported—the size of the group correlated with the size of the brain. ```

Answer 7

``` Allows for certain advantages: Division of labor Easier mating Easier to fend off enemies Formation of hierarchies ``` Result: Information exchange

Answer 8

Largely the result of the many advantages that complex social world and the brain afford, is the increased ability to exchange information! And thus, information can be learned. When it comes to learning itself, humans are a peculiar specie, because the learning is focused on imitation, rather than emulation. That is, it is not goal oriented per se, but rather is highlighted by direct extraction and memory for the relevant information.

Answer 9

In humans: imitative learning | Other primates: emulative learning

Answer 10

Imitative learning—learn information and then ability to improve on it via innovation. That is, for example, you first would learn how to use the tool and then think about how to improve the uses of the tool. Emulative learning, often is more efficient, but the information may not be improved upon. Think of it this way, you can first learn basic mathematics, the advance to calculus, and perhaps, one day, you decide to write a thesis in math. Here, you will using the knowledge that you have imitated to create something new or to discover some process related to cross-cultural psychology!

Answer 11

This figure is from PhD comics series, I believe. I think I have seen it a few years ago, when I used to attend to the website. Sometimes, you just get too busy. What you see in here is the circle that encompasses all of the human knowledge. Suppose that the blue dot in the middle is you. You cannot have access to all of the information that is out there in the world (even if you use the internet). The knowledge was created by imitation, building on the ideas described in the original source. So you go into college, then get your masters and become so interested in one subject, become and expert. What actually happens in a greater sense of the world is that you are simply creating one little dent in all of the knowledge that is out there. Now think about multiple people working in different domains, you can see how the knowledge can rapidly expand if every individual contributed just a little bit. By the way, there is no need to be a PhD to make a contribution to the sea of knowledge. In fact, all of us contribute to the expansion of knowledge directly or indirectly with every purchase that we make. But I digress.

Answer 12

We use information as building blocks New information is added Dependent on population size: More people, greater probability that a new innovation will occur As such, we have a faster development in addition to greater brain capacity! We begin to learn culture from each other

Answer 13

Simply state, what happens is that we use information as building blocks for creating new knowledge. The innovation and new knowledge is dependent on the size of the population and how fast the information exchange is between different people. As such, in groups, we acquire knew knowledge faster and start generating our lay theories about how people behave and what kind of behaviors are appropriate within one group or another—thus, we have an emergence of meaning systems and culture. What happens next? We learn culture from each other.

Answer 14

As such, we will transition now to learning—or the questions of how we learn culture. Because as we consider culture as information, we need a way of learning it. This naturally implies that we all come into the world with similar capabilities (which may not always true, but think about averages)—assuming normal distribution, most of us will come into the world in similar capabilities. Culture then shapes how we view and interact with the world.

Answer 15

``` Venezuela = 32 inches U.S. = 35 inches Japan = 40 inches ```

Answer 16

Two possibilities: 1. Genetic predisposition 2. Socialization Cultural knowledge and skills not in our heads from birth. Universal brains develop into culturally variable minds.

Answer 17

We might to stand close or far from others because it is our genetic predisposition to do so. However, it is unlikely that there is a gene or a sequence of genes that causes us to adjust the distance between each other much of it seems to be socialization

Answer 18

Critical Period Hypothesis (Lenneberg, 1967) Pay attention to the graph. Explain what is on the x-axis, y-axis, pay attention to the title of the graph—helps with interpretation. The graph demonstrates that after a certain age, English infants cannot distinguish between two phonemes from Hindu language—they have “lumped” the two into the same category. That is, when they hear these two separate sounds, they only hear the same sound—this is the power of perception!

Answer 19

A boy found in France, living in the wild until the age of 12—even after some limited rehabilitation, the boy could not be integrated into the society.

Answer 20

Los Angeles, 1970 13 Years Old Genie, was found in an abusive household, raised in silence in a cage. Although her rehabilitation was slightly more successful, Genie was never able to acquire grammatical structures and syntax. What does this suggest? Well, there appears to be some weak evidence for the critical period language hypothesis. However, there is not enough evidence. If you think about it, it makes little sense to make such conclusions. The experiment was not conducted in the controlled setting (for the better). What is important to remember here is that there are a number of additional variables that can explain the effect and that are absolutely impossible to measure. The abuse, the trauma, the nutrition—you name it. Also, this says very little about the cultural learning. An interesting question then becomes how much cultural learning depends on language? How can you test that? There are probably many creative ways of doing it, yet every single one of them will likely be incomplete—we are always going to miss something.

Answer 21

Cultural Acquisition Study (Minoura, 1992) Japanese children who moved to U.S.: Before age 9: Largely “Americanized” Between ages 9-15: Retained some Japanese culture, but comfortable with American culture After age 15: Never able to fully embrace American culture Similar things happened to East Asians Moving to Canada

Answer 22

However, what does it mean to be “Americanized?” We cannot assess “Americanization” directly. To assess cultural learning, you would need to follow people for a long time and to record their behavior systematically across multiple situations. As you can imagine, this is an extremely expensive procedure! In the study, they used questionnaires—not the best measure, but it is interesting nevertheless!

Answer 23

I would be willing to marry a person from my heritage culture I would be willing to marry a white American culture I enjoy entertainment (e.g. movies, music) from my heritage culture I enjoy American entertainment (e.g. movies, music).

Answer 24

So remember, that these are imprecise self-reports. However they still provide us with some information about the degree of identification with the culture (or maybe not). What is frustrating about this is that the questionnaire makes many assumptions about different cultures: e.g., all immigrants are romantically into White; they have never had exposure to American music in their heritage culture—this makes no sense. I bet that this question lacks validity!

Answer 25

Even before acquiring the language, we go over the interactions with different family members. This may happen even before we are actually born. For example, some people decorate their children's rooms before the child is actually born. What is important about sleeping arrangements is that they reflect cultural values and cultural norms. These norms are implicit, but they do communicate something quite fascinating to us!

Answer 26

The choice is easy when there is only a few rooms. In Western Cultures, the child gets a separate room more often than not.

Answer 27

In many other cultures, the space is used for something else, while the child sleeps with their parents—perhaps, the important point to note here is that the child may have more contact with their parents and might therefore become more interdependent. Note here, is the use of words, such as “maybe” or “may” – they represent an inference. In scientific writing, when there is no evidence, we use the words like this to indicate that it is our guess!

Answer 28

In the study, the Ps (participants) were shown similar family arrangement and were asked to position them into different rooms. The most interesting results were obtained in a moderate household (3 rooms).

Answer 29

In Chicagoan family, the couple is placed together; otherwise, complete segregation by gender. Thus, Chicagoans value romantic love of the couple and their privacy (“Sacred couple”), they value separation by biological sex (“Incest avoidance”), and also they value the autonomy because the children are allowed to grow independently from their parents (“Autonomy ideal”).

Answer 30

In Orissa, India, men and women are again separated into separate rooms (“Incest avoidance”), The females are always located with the mother, who is older and can protect their virginity (“Female Chastity Anxiety”); next, there is protection of the vulnerable because both parents are in proximity with the youngest child of the same sex. Finally, respect for hierarchy is important, where hierarchy means age. As such, older members get their own space: Father gets a big bed and adult boys get their own separate rooms.

Answer 31

``` Chicago, U.S. “Incest Avoidance” “Sacred Couple” “Autonomy Ideal” Orissa, India “Incest Avoidance” “Protection of the Vulnerable” “Female Chastity Anxiety” “Respect for Hierarchy” ```

Answer 32

The current slides presents the values from more important to least important in each culture. Further, outside of the family environment, we observe very interesting changes as a function of formal schooling.

Answer 33

In school, we learn much information. But we also learn rules and heuristics. However, does this really constitute culture? Perhaps, if we consider formal schooling culture. Perhaps not, if we think of national culture, as we have been doing before. However, schooling is great for helping us organize the world around us, which increases the efficiency more generally. We can categorize the words on the list and we will remember them better. We become better at separating the problems on the paper from the surrounding environment, focusing on the core to find solution. Finally, we learn many rules that make it easy for us to process information—multiplication and division. Although, there are some national differences for divisions.

Answer 34

Stevenson Study in Peru (1982) Schooling = Improved contextual memory, spatial memory, serial memory, and visual and sequential analysis. Formal schooling affects how people think.

Answer 35

The trend suggests that even given schooling, nations differ in how well they know math—you are probably familiar with stereotypes being good at math (remember those are averages). You can see from here that math scores are a bit better in East Asian schools. Why would that be. Here, I have made a mistake in the lecture. The points represent schools. Still, my criticisms stand—there are just a few school represented and no variance indicators for each school. A few school with great variance can wash way the difference. The fact remains in large samples too. East Asians tend to be better at math than Westerners.

Answer 36

Differences in teaching More real-world examples used in East Asia (80% vs. 10% in U.S.) More time devoted to math education. More homework. More days in school (240 in Japan vs. 180 in U.S.). Differences in number system Names for numbers easier Format of numbers more logical

Answer 37

Some potential differences for why East Asians are good at math. The slide appears to be self-explanatory.

Answer 38

Differences in Parenting East Asian parents see education as more central to child’s life. Desk at home = 98% of Taiwanese 5th graders vs. 63% of Americans. East Asian mothers much less satisfied with child’s performance. Cultural Values 5th graders told wizard would grant anything they want (Chinese students = 70% wished something related to education; compared to only 10% of Americans (who wished for less school!))

Answer 39

Rothbaum et al. (2000) Two main organizing concepts 1. Symbiotic Harmony Adapt one’s self to needs of others 2. Generative Tension Tension between close relationship w/ caregivers vs. desire for independence Reveal themselves in stages across the lifespan

Answer 40

Symbiotic harmony—I like to think Zen when I think about this idea. In general, it says that people sort of merge with each other for mutual benefit. However the benefits are different, so I would imagine the process of osmosis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmosis). That is, people are engaged in exchange of love and care (by care I mean fulfillment of needs). In this sense, a mother meets more meets of the child than the child does for the mother (think physical needs). This style is said to describe East Asian (Japanese) parenting. Generative tension—This means not that the tension is negative, but rather is necessary for healthy development. That is, it is expected (a norm) that the parents and children will have tension because they are different individuals and individuals do not always meet half way. Much of this is of course considered to be a part of healthy development whereby this style fosters independence of the mind and ability to leave the nest when necessary.

Answer 41

Japan union: mother/child as one More affect-/relationship-focused language More physical touch Attention to mother more

Answer 42

``` US reunion: mother/child separate but come together Info-oriented language Labeling of outside world More physical separation Attention outward, explore more ```

Answer 43

Japan/Union: from an outside perspective, the mother and the child are one. They exchange the body heat, touch, and the love. Generates a sense of attachment to the mother. And the child is always encouraged to pay more attention to the relationship with the mother and between objects, rather than on the external objects. US/Reunion: the child and the mother are separate entities. They do interact, but the goal is to establish the individual not in the relationship with others, but rather as a separate individuals.

Answer 44

Japan Obligation (others’ expectations) Less encouraged to assert personal preferences Noncompliance expected to pass naturally Coercion replaced with psychological control: modeling Empathy training is a major focus

Answer 45

US Personal preference Child’s negotiation abilities/independence encouraged Noncompliance expected/valued Anger and force employed by parents Healthy conflict encouraged

Answer 46

Japan: focus on obligations. Not own preferences, but rather the expectations of the entire society should be met. In this way, the mother acts as a spokesperson for the community, teaching the child of appropriate ways of behavior. The avoidance of conflict and the way to deal with it is especially important. The child is not scolded, the parents teach the child to relate to how OTHER people will feel (emotions, such as guilt and shame are relational emotions, meaning that they are most likely to be expressed in relationship to other people) US: The focus on expressing own preferences. If the child does not do so, they are encouraged to express themselves. This will identify the child as unique and independent individual. The conflict is viewed as an establishment of an individual as a separate entity, helping with negotiation abilities for the future. In the US, the focus on “get your way” is huge. This does not necessarily mean that it is the right way everywhere. Imagine an American bringing their culture elsewhere, where collectivism will be valued—they may be viewed as rude. However, imagine the opposite, the relational nature is brought to the US—the person may be considered shy and indecisive. What this basically suggests that it is important to consider the environment where the differences emerge, rather than making conclusions about whether the situation is “bad” or “good.”

Answer 47

Japan Stability of relationships: parents and peers More time home than w/ peers “Polluted world” Peer interactions are practice for behavior US Transfer of relationships: from parents to peers Secure individual identity by challenging parental values/limits Emphasis on sex/romantic attraction

Answer 48

Japan—adolescence practice what they have learned from their parents with other people in the world. As such, parents act as role models for proper behavior that needs to be encouraged to the outside world. They stay at home a lot and have few guests. US—The transfer here refers to the change in the focus of attention. Now the peers become mentors and interaction partners more so than parents. The adolescence assure their own identity by challenging parental restrictions—show the world that they have own opinions that are independent from those expressed by their parents. Place a lot of emphasis on sex and romantic relationship.

Answer 49

``` Japan Assurance Role-prescribed behavior and norms Loyalty-based love Needs of marital dyad and individual less import than needs of children/elders Marriage is pragmatic, not romantic Direct conflict taboo ```

Answer 50

US Trust Relationships are not guaranteed; based on hope/faith in love Pair bonds easily ended Romance/sex important beyond marriage/children Conflict seen as healthy, allowing for negotiation of needs

Answer 51

Here, the focus is largely on family building.

PSY321 2. Development Flashcards

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