Developmental Psychology Chapter Overview

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Questions and Answers

What is the primary goal of developmental scientists?

To strictly measure developmental progress

To limit influences of the environment

To categorize individual differences

To describe, explain, and optimize development (correct)

What distinguishes a between-subjects design from a within-subjects design?

It looks at different groups at the same time (correct)

It uses longitudinal data exclusively

It manipulates more than one variable

It measures the same group over time

Which design combines both cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches?

Microgenetic Design

Cross-Sectional Design

Sequential Design (correct)

Observational Design

What role does inferential statistics play in developmental research?

It determines if a result is the result of chance Signup and view all the answers

According to Freud, what is the primary function of the ego?

To rationally mediate between desires and reality Signup and view all the answers

What concept did Erikson emphasize as central to development?

Psychosocial forces and step-by-step development Signup and view all the answers

What is a characteristic of longitudinal design?

It tracks the same participants over an extended period Signup and view all the answers

What is the main focus of observational methods in developmental research?

Gaining insights into unstructured situations Signup and view all the answers

What is the primary focus of identity development during adolescence?

Exploring different identities and committing to one Signup and view all the answers

What can happen if a child fails to develop initiative during the 4-5 year stage?

The child may experience guilt Signup and view all the answers

In which stage do children learn whether their work is competent compared to peers?

Industry vs. Inferiority Signup and view all the answers

What is the developmental impact of having responsive parents during the Trust vs. Mistrust stage?

The child learns to trust Signup and view all the answers

What is the result of failing to reach the Intimacy vs. Isolation stage?

The individual may find their life lacks meaning Signup and view all the answers

What characterizes the stage of Generativity vs. Stagnation?

Accepting life as positive and meaningful Signup and view all the answers

During which stage do individuals assess whether they accept their life's achievements and mistakes?

Integrity vs. Despair Signup and view all the answers

What does Social Learning Theory emphasize in the context of learning?

The influence of external context and observation Signup and view all the answers

At what age does a child's memory reach near-adult capability?

8 years Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following is a characteristic of implicit memory?

Matures faster than explicit memory Signup and view all the answers

What is Metamemory primarily concerned with?

Self-assessment of memory ability Signup and view all the answers

Which part of the brain is primarily responsible for the development of explicit memory?

Hippocampus Signup and view all the answers

What is one reason why young children may have difficulty in recalling unique events?

They encode unique events less effectively. Signup and view all the answers

What phenomenon explains the inability to remember autobiographical memories from early childhood?

Infantile Amnesia Signup and view all the answers

What is the earliest known evidence of fetal learning?

32 weeks gestation Signup and view all the answers

Children are more likely to form which type of memory compared to adults?

False memories for plausible events Signup and view all the answers

What does Chomsky propose is a key component of language development?

A Language Acquisition Device processes incoming stimuli Signup and view all the answers

What occurs during the critical period of language development according to Lenneberg?

Language-deprivation severely impacts future language acquisition Signup and view all the answers

Which concept refers to a pidgin language that becomes the native language for children?

Creole Signup and view all the answers

What is one of Chomsky's supports for the Nativist Theory of language development?

Children can create unique languages from limited input Signup and view all the answers

What is one characteristic associated with the Language Acquisition Device (LAD)?

It is an innate system for detecting language patterns Signup and view all the answers

What happens to children who experience significant language deprivation during the critical period?

Their ability to learn languages successfully decreases Signup and view all the answers

Which example supports Lenneberg's proposition of a critical period for language development?

Genie's case illustrates the effects of extreme language deprivation Signup and view all the answers

Which statement about Infant Directed Speech is accurate?

It alters speech patterns to engage infants' attention Signup and view all the answers

What is a recessive allele?

An allele that is only expressed when two copies are inherited. Signup and view all the answers

Which mechanism contributes to genetic diversity by increasing variability during cell division?

Crossing over Signup and view all the answers

What is the primary consequence of males having one X and one Y chromosome?

They are more likely to inherit disorders linked to the X chromosome. Signup and view all the answers

How do environmental factors interact with genetic material according to epigenetics?

By influencing which genes are expressed. Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following describes individuals who inherit two different alleles for a trait?

Heterozygous Signup and view all the answers

What genetic condition is caused by a dominant allele?

Huntington’s disease Signup and view all the answers

What is the role of the Y chromosome in male development?

It provides a protein essential for forming testes. Signup and view all the answers

What syndrome is linked to sex-linked inheritance?

Fragile-X syndrome Signup and view all the answers

Study Notes

Goals of Developmental Scientists

Describe development
Explain development
Optimize development

Experimental Study

Isolates the effect of independent variables on dependent variables
Can be within-subjects or between-subjects designs
Between-subjects designs view changes in different groups

Developmental Designs

Cross-Sectional Design: Giving the same task at the same time to participants in different age groups
Longitudinal Design: Participants are observed repeatedly over time; could take 6 months, some last decades
Microgenetic Design: longitudinal studies that happen at a microscopical scale
Sequential Design: a combination of cross-sectional and longitudinal; participants of different ages (cross-sectional) were observed repeatedly for a period of time (longitudinal)

Collecting Data

Observational Methods: Observational Testing (stimulating for response) or Naturalistic Observation
Self-report: Verbal (interview) or Written (questionnaire)

Statistical Inferences

Scientific theories are tested with new data to determine the odds that the theory still holds true
A theory that is 95% likely to be true has "passed" the test of falsifiability
The more passes, the more true the theory is
Inferential Statistics used to determine how likely a hypothesis is to be true
In any data, there is a possibility that the observed results were due to chance, not a distinct difference

Sigmund Freud – Three Components of Personality

Id: the basic urges
Ego: the rational component of thoughts
Superego: conscience, using moral reasoning

Freud’s Stages

Believed that development happened in a particular order of different stages universal in existence
It's not required to ‘succeed’ in a stage before passing on to a later stage
Stage progression is led by changes in one’s environment and maturity.

Freud’s Contributions

The importance of childhood development in shaping who we become
The importance of unconscious and internal conflicts shaping our feelings and actions

Erik Erikson – General Theory

Erikson believed in psychosocial forces, with epigenesis as the core of development
Epigenesis: the idea that development happens step-by-step, with new abilities building over time
Emphasized on identity development, rather than personality, as an ongoing process in developing

Erikson's Stages

Trust / Mistrust (0-1 year): Infant learns who they can rely on, typically the mother
- Trust: the child has a responsive mother
- Mistrust: the mother is unresponsive
Autonomy / Shame (2-3 years): Firm / Supportive Parents - the child learns initiative to act independently
- Autonomy: if parents are supportive
- Shame: if parents are too strict or lenient
- The child can’t initiate behavior or it doesn’t matter to them
Initiative / Guilt (4-5 years): Children who develop initiative (good or bad) learn their capabilities independently
- Initiative: A child succeeds (role models)
- Guilt: A child fails
Industry / Inferiority (6 - 13 years): Child learns whether their work is competent compared to other children.
- Industry: work paying off in school etc.
- Inferiority: failing relative to peers
Identity / Diffusion (Adolescents): Adolescents successfully develop an identity or fail by settling for the wrong identity
- Success: 1. explore identities, 2. commit to an identity
Intimacy / Isolation (Young Adults): learns whether they want to share their life with another or prefer to be alone
- Success: open themselves up to others
- Fail: If they can’t, this stage is failed
Generativity / Stagnation (Adult): Adult learns if their contributions to the world are meaningful, or if their life lacks meaning and worth
Integrity / Despair (Old Age): Whether or not they can accept their life as being positive and meaningful, accepting mistakes, or if they feel as if they missed out or wasted life

Behavioural Theories

Social Learning Theory (SLT): broadens the scope of types of learning, revealing how context influences learning
Ex - learning what’s cool from Grandma vs. Influence of the child’s phenotype on his or her environment

Chromosomes

Passed on by genetic material, made up of DNA
Genes: sections of chromosomes that code for a particular sequence and/or hold an effect on other genes

Epigenetics

How genes and the environment work together to produce/develop an organism

Mechanisms Contributing to Genetic Diversity

Mutations: Changes in sections of DNA caused by random or environmental factors
Random Assortment: The shuffling of the 23 pairs of chromosomes in the sperm and egg
Crossing Over: Sections of DNA switching from chromosomes during meiosis, increasing genetic variability

Alleles

About ⅓ of human genes have 2 or more different forms, known as alleles
Dominant Allele: the form of the gene that is expressed if present
Recessive Allele: isn’t expressed if a dominant allele is present
Homozygous: person who inherits two of the same alleles for a trait
Heterozygous: person who inherits two different alleles for a trait

Sex Chromosomes

Females have two X chromosomes in the 23rd pair, whereas males have an X and a Y chromosome
The Y chromosome gives the protein to form testes, which produce testosterone and the sense of manliness

The Male Disadvantage

The Y chromosome has only about a third as many genes on it as the X chromosome
males are more likely to suffer inherited disorders from recessive alleles on the X chromosome (colour blind)

Genetic Origins of Human Diseases and Disorders

Over 5,000 human diseases and disorders are presently known to have genetic origins
- Recessive gene: PKU, sickle-cell anemia, cystic fibrosis
- Single dominant gene: Huntington’s disease
- Sex-linked inheritance: Fragile-X syndrome, hemophilia
- Errors in meiosis: Down syndrome, Kleinfelter syndrome
- Deleterious effects: A debilitating blood disorder when both alleles are present

Phenylketonuria (PKU)

A disorder related to a defective gene on chromosome 12, unable to metabolize phenylalanine
Reaches near-adult capability by abt age 8

Memory

Memory is like google - it finds the strongest (or most popular) connection based on keywords
The process of retrieval strengthens the keyword-memory link, leading to possible false memories

False Memory

Children are more likely to form false memories for plausible events than adults
New protocols for interviewing children attempt to minimize false memory through appropriate techniques

Implicit Memory

Implicit memory develops earlier and has a greater ability to withstand brain damage
- This suggests that implicit memory is evolutionarily older than explicit memory
Implicit memory matures faster; fewer differences between children and adults

Explicit Memory

Thought to be dependent on hippocampus development
Hippocampus matures at approximately 18 months, in charge of long-term memory
Also dependent on language, Explicit memory is Influenced by many cultural and learned factors
Younger children also tend to encode routine, vs.unique, events
- Recall facility & frequency effects

Metamemory

Metamemory refers to one’s memory capacity in terms of size, speed, and accuracy
Preschool children tend to overestimate their memory performance (positive self-success bias)
The relationship between metacognition and cognitive performance is bidirectional

Fetal Learning

The earliest observations of fetal learning (and therefore memory) have occurred at 32 weeks gestation
Newborn infants have been shown to prefer stimuli they were exposed to prenatally, like:
- Sounds (Cat in the Hat, mother’s voice and language)
- Smells (Own amniotic fluid)
- Tastes (Juice mother drank – to 5.5 months)

Infantile Amnesia

Inability to remember autobiographical memories from early childhood
- Freud & repression; encoding differences from child to adult (like a Mac to a PC); a sense of self that's missing when young; young children have poor long-term encoding
- We do remember, we just don't remember remembering (implicit vs explicit)

What is Language?

Arbitrariness: uses symbols that aren’t related to the concept they represent (eg. Children aren’t corrected for their pronouciation)

Chomsky

Chomsky rejected the idea that language development is solely driven by the environment
Proposed that surface structure of language is what we hear when people talk, with a deep structure underlying all languages (spoken or not)
The ability to detect, understand, and use deep structure in an innate species-specific ability
In people, the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) processes incoming stimuli, detecting underlying patterns

Nativist Theory - Chomsky

Supports for Nativist:
- Similarities in all human language grammars, even those that aren’t verbal
- Children’s ability to create a Creole language from a pidgin in one generation!
- Children’s ability to create their own native language from mixing languages and words to make sentences
  - Adult Ex: adult tourist from paris asking “as tu know ou le shopping mall is”
  - Child Ex: Nicaragua kids made their own sign language from combining languages and symbols
- Pidgin: mixing languages and words to form your own sentence
- Creole: a pidgin language that has become the native language for kids of adult pidgin speakers.
Infant Directed Speech: changing speech for baby; “look baby, do you see the elephant?Thats a big trunk!”

Lenneberg's Support for Nativist Theory:

Complex language is found only in humans
Common to all healthy humans, requiring little formal teaching
Some language disabilities are genetic
Its development is difficult to derail
Develops in predictable sequence
Portions of the brain and throat appear specialized for language

Critical Period

Lenneberg proposed that there is a critical period for language development
- language-deprivation in childhood does not allow for ideal language development even with intensive learning (Ex - Genie’s mom drugging her so her legs stop working, putting her in a veggie state)
- Differences in grammatical competency based on age of language acquisition
- Children show better language plasticity after l.h.Damage

Why A Critical Period?

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Description

This quiz covers the key concepts and methodologies in developmental psychology, including different experimental designs and data collection methods. Explore cross-sectional, longitudinal, and microgenetic designs, as well as the role of observational and self-report techniques in research. Test your understanding of how developmental scientists describe, explain, and optimize human development.