psych 260 exam 1 Flashcards
(38 cards)
Life span perspective
- Unique qualities during development throughout life as well as qualities that are the same throughout life
- Examines patterns in growth, change, and stability in behavior from conception until death
- physical dvlpmnt (studies physical changes & how it affects us)
- cognitive dvlpmnt (studies why we have changes in way of thinking and how. Piaget: how changes hppnd in patterns of thinking)
- personality dvlpmnt (not stable, changes throughout lifespan: studies why)
- social dvlpmnt (studies changes in interactions with others)
- emotional dvlpmnt (progression of emotions)
How alike are we?
Everyone is like every other person (all human)
Everyone is like some other person (we conform)
Everyone is like no other person (individuality, personality)
Why adult dvlpmnt is important
- a lot slower than infant/child development
- change occurs during adulthood too!
- not all change is bad, it’s both good and bad
- people experience both growth and decline
Life span
Maximum observed time living in a population Rarely changes 111 yrs: 1900 115 yrs: 1990 122 yrs: 1997
Life expectancy
Number of years someone is EXPECTED to live
- Varies depending on where in the world you were born, whether you are male or female, and what cohort (people who were born in the same year as you) you are a part of
- includes infant mortality rates
Characteristics of the life span perspective
- lifelong
- multidimensional (all aspects of development)
- multidirectional (looks at young to old, young to old)
- plastic (changes over time)
- contextual (environment matters)
- multidisciplinary (a lot of different disciplines care about it: psychology people, biology people, etc)
Developmental Changes Are a Result of
Biological, Cognitive, and Socioemotional Processes
Both genes and environment matter
Ex. Prenatal environment changes affects how you bcome later in life (such as exposure to teratogens (poisons))
Periods of development
Prenatal period: conception to birth Infancy: birth to 18-24 months Early childhood: 2-5 years Middle and late childhood: 6-11 years Adolescence: 10-12 years to 18-21 years (murkiest of periods) Early adulthood: 20s to 30s (financial &emotional independence) Middle adulthood: 40s to 50s Late adulthood: 60s to 70s
Continuous versus discontinuous change
Argument over the extent development involves gradual, cumulative change or distinct stages
Continuous: changing gradually every day
Discontinuous: believe in stages (dvlpmnt moves from stage to stage)
Usually somewhere in the middle. Personality development tends to be more like stages. Cognitive more gradual progression
Critical vs sensitive periods
Degree that external stimuli have detrimental consequences to normal development
- critical: says tht there are certain periods of time when u have to learn something or you will never learn it.
- sensitive: says that there are some periods when you learn better, and once those periods pass it becomes extremely hard to learn those things (ex language) but not impossible.
Nature versus nurture
Degree to which development is influences by nature and by nurture
Nature: genetics. Proclivity towards certain actions
Nurture: environment.
Things are influenced by both
Chronological age
How old u r based on calendar
4yrs and 2 months
Biological age
How old u r in terms of biological health
Determination both physical and cognitive
Psychological age
How well you adapt to surroundings
Maturity, how well you are able to deal with trauma. Someone who experiences trauma and comes out of it stronger
Social age
How old u r compared to social milestones of other ppl. 19 yo raising to kids same social age as a 43 yo raising 2 kids
Milestones you have been to
Theory
Coherent set of ideas that helps explain phenomena and make predictions
Guides our research
When research takes in a different direction, alters our theory
Theories of life span development
- psychodynamic: psychoanalytical, psychosocial
- behavioral: classical and operant conditioning, social cognitive learning
- cognitive: information processing and cognitive neuroscience
- humanistic: person centered
- contextual: bioecological, sociocultural
- evolutionary: behaviors result from genetic inheritance
Psychodynamic perspective: psychoanalytic
Freud
- unconscious, person has very little control and subjected to unconscious forces. Stems mostly from childhood experiences. Sexual stages
- behavior is motivated by inner forces, memories, and conflicts of which a person has little control
- personality has 3 aspects: Id , ego, superego
Psychodynamic perspective: Psychosocial Theory
Erikson
Primary focus: social interaction with others
How development proceeds:
•Through changes in interactions with and understanding of others
•Changes in self knowledge and understanding of members of society
•Psychosocial development involves 8 distinct, fixed, universal stages
•Each stage presents crisis/conflict to be resolved
•growth and change are lifelong
Behavioral theories
Focus on things we can observe and test
•Focus on observable behavior and outside environmental stimuli
Watson
Behavior is result of continuing exposure to specific environmental factors
Principles: Classical conditioning (paired rat with scary clanging)
(Can alter someone’s behavior by changing their environment)
B.F. Skinner
Behavioral •Voluntary response is strengthened or weakened by association with negative or positive consequences (reward things that are good and punish things that are bad) Principles: •Operant conditioning •Reinforcement: increases behavior •Punishment: decreases behavior -extinction *Behavior modification:Increasing behavior by increasing reward
Bandura
Behavioral
Theory: Social cognitive learning theory
•Learning through imitation/ observing
•Behavior is learned through observation of another (model): see if they are rewarded or punished, change behavior that way
-Don’t have to be directly reinforced or punished
Principles:
•Social-cognitive learning occurs through:
•attending/perceiving model’s behavior
•Recalling the behavior
•Accurately reproducing the behavior
•Motivation to carry out behavior
Cognitive perspective
Jean Piaget
•Cognitive processes that allow people to know, understand, and think about the world
•Human thinking is arranged in organized mental patterns that represent behaviors and actions (schemes)
Principles:
•Schemes/schemas (mental representation of whats acceptable)
•Assimilation (add new info to it) & accommodation (realize something bout schema is wrong so you can change it)
