AP Psychology: Developmental Psychology (Modules 13-16)

The study of how people are continually developing – physically, cognitively and socially from infancy through old age

1. Nature vs. Nurture: How do genetic inheritance (our nature) and experience (the nurture we receive) influence development?

2. Continuity vs. Stages: Is development a gradual, continuous process or a sequence of separate stages?

3. Stability vs. Change: Do our early personality traits persist through life, or do we become different persons as we age?

The fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo

The developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month

The developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth

The fetus is responsive to sound and is exposed to the sound of its mother’s muffled voice constantly while in the womb.

Agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm

Physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by heavy drinking while pregnant

When something touches an infant’s cheek, babies turn toward it and open their mouths

Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. More familiarity = waning interest

Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience (ex. standing before walking, using nouns before adjectives)

Birth

Frontal lobes, which enable rational planning

Association areas, responsible for thinking, memory and language

3.5 years

Jean Piaget

All mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering and communicating

An unceasing struggle to make sense of our experiences

Concepts/frameworks that organize and interpret information

Interpreting our new experience in terms of our existing schemas (ex. A moose must be a cow, because cows have four legs.)

Adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information (ex. Schema is modified to include “moose.”)

1. Sensorimotor Stage

2. Pre-operational Stage

3. Concrete Operational Stage

4. Formal Operational Stage

Stage during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities

Age Range: Birth - 2 years

Important concepts: Object Permanence

Stage during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic

Age Range: 2 years - 6 or 7 years

Important concepts: Conservation, Symbolic Thinking, Egocentrism, Theory of Mind

Those in the pre-operational stage don't understand conservation, the principle that quantity remains the same despite changes in shape. (Ex. The girl believes the tall, narrow glass has more milk than the shorter glass, but the volume of milk is actually the same.)

The ability to recognize that representations can act as symbols (Ex. using a model room with a hidden model toy to find a real toy in a real room)

The pre-operational child's difficulty to take another's point of view; lack of sympathy (Ex. "How would YOU feel is she took your toy?")

People's ideas about their own and others' mental states -- about their feelings, perceptions and thoughts, and the behaviors one might predict

Stage during which children gain mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events

Age Range: 6 to 7 years - 11 years

Stage during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts

Age Range: 12 years - Adulthood

Language provides the building blocks for thinking.

Piaget emphasized that a child's mind grows through interaction with the physical environment while Vygotsky emphasized that a child's mind grows through interaction with the social environment.

Fear of strangers that infants commonly display; marks a new ability to evaluate people as unfamiliar and possibly threatening

Monkeys were raised with two artificial "mothers," one a bare wire cylinder with a bottle, the other wrapped in cloth with no bottle. Despite a lack of food source, the clothed "mother" was preferred over the wired one. This disproved the idea that infants developed attachment to those who satisfied their need for nourishment.

One person providing a safe haven when distressed and secure base from which to explore

An optimal period shortly after birth when an organism's exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development

The process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life

No, but exposure contributes to familiarity and familiarity breeds content.

Secure attachment: When placed in a strange situation, infants are likely to play comfortably and explore surroundings. Distress comes when she leaves; they cling to her upon return.

Insecure attachment: When in a strange situation and in their mother's presence, they are less likely to explore and may cling to their mother. They are upset or indifferent when she leaves and returns.

A person's characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity

A sense that the world is predictable and reliable; said to be formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers

Children become withdrawn, frightened or even speechless. As they grow, they can likely become neglectful or aggressive.

Our understanding and evaluation of who we are

Self-concept is the understanding of who you are as a person, while self-esteem is a measure of self-worth

1. Authoritarian

2. Permissive

3. Authoritative

Parents impose rules and expect obedience. Ex. "Why" Because I said so."

Parents submit to their children's desires, making few demands and little punishment

Parents are both demanding and responsive, setting and enforcing rules while explaining them and encouraging open discussion about them.

Warm, concerned authoritative parents

Transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence

Period of sexual maturation during which a person becomes capable of reproducing

Body structures (ovaries, testes, external genetalia) that make sexual reproduction possible

Non-reproductive sexual characteristics, such as female breasts and hips, male voice quality and body hair

It's stressful; girls may experience teasing and sexual harassment as a result of their early maturation. Or, they may associate with other adolescents.

Selective pruning occurs; unused neurons and connections are eliminated.

Frontal

Self-focused, believes their private experiences are unique spectacles that cannot be understood by parents

1. Preconventional Morality

2. Conventional Morality

3. Postconventional Morality

Before age 9, most children's morality focuses on self-interest, obeying rules to avoid punishment or gain concrete rewards.

Ex. "I won't eat a cookie before my meal so I can play with my toy."

Caring for others and upholding laws and social rules simply because they are laws and rules.

Ex. Not running a red light because it's the law

Actions are judged "right" because they flow from people's rights or basic ethical principles

Ex. Civil Rights Movement sit-ins; civil disobedience

They become more socially responsible, academically successful and productive.

Identity vs. Role Confusion; solidify a sense of self or identity

Our sense of self; according to Erikson, the adolescent's task is to solidify a sense of self by testing and integrating various roles

The aspect of the communal "we" in self-concept; the part of our answer to "Who am I?" that comes from our group memberships

1. Trust vs. Mistrust

2. Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt

3. Initiative vs. Guilt

4. Industry vs. Inferiority

5. Identity vs. Role Confusion

6. Intimacy vs. Isolation

7. Generativity vs. Self-Absorption

8. Integrity vs. Despair

If needs are dependably met, infants develop a sense of basic trust.

Age: Infancy (1 year)

Toddlers learn to exercise their will and do things for themselves, or they doubt their abilities.

Age: Toddlerhood (1-3 years)

Preschoolers learn to initiate tasks and carry out plans, or they feel guilty about their efforts to be independent.

Age: Preschool (3-6 years)

Children learn the pleasure of applying themselves to tasks, or they feel inferior.

Age: Elementary school (6 years to puberty)

Teens work at refining a sense of self by testing roles then integrating them into an identity, or they experience confusion about themselves.

Age: Adolescence (teens to 20s)

Young adults struggle to form close relationships and to gain the capacity for intimate love, or they feel isolated.

Age: Young adulthood (20s to early 40s)

In middle age, people discover a sense of contributing to the world, usually through family and work, or they may feel a lack of purpose.

Age: Middle adulthood (40s to 60s)

Reflecting on his or her life, an older adult may feel a sense of satisfaction or failure.

Age: Late adulthood

According to Erikson, the ability to form close, loving relationships; a primary developmental task in late adolescence and early childhood

Adolescents begin to pull away from their parents.

Positive peer relations

Period from late teens to early 20s bridging the gap between adolescent dependence and full independence and responsible adulthood

Natural cessation of menstruation

Decline

Physical activity contributes to the strengthening of parts of the body that tend to decline naturally

Diminish

Weakens

Slows

Older people are better at recognizing information while younger people are better at recalling.

A study in which people of different ages are compared with one another

Research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period of time

Our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age

Our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late childhood

The acceleration of cognitive decline when near death (within 3-4 years)

Not really' unhappiness, job dissatisfaction, marital dissatisfaction, job loss, etc. don't really surge during the early 40s

The culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement

No, a study shows that those couples who did cohabit were more likely to divorce than those that didn't

For the most part, an empty nest is a happy place; many report greater happiness and enjoyment of marriage once children leave.