Developmental Psychology Concepts

Module 3.1 Themes and Methods in Developmental Psychology

• Development results from a complex interplay of nature and nurture, with 20,000+ genes coding for protein building blocks and predisposing traits.
• Cultural values are shaped by family, religious, and academic environments that encourage critical thinking.
• Human development is marked by both stability and change, with life situations evolving but a continuous self being experienced.
• Our lives change, but we experience a continuous self.
• Sixty years later, some still enjoy basketball and love the life partner with whom they have shared life's griefs and joys.
• Development is a continuous process, seeded by nature and shaped by nurture, animated by love, and focused by work, beginning with curiosity and hopefully completed with peace.
• Researchers study human development to understand how we become who we are and how we may change in the future.
• Developmental psychology examines physical, cognitive, and social-emotional growth across the lifespan.
• Key themes studied are nature vs. nurture, continuity vs. stages, and stability vs. change.
• Cross-sectional studies compare people of different ages at one point in time.
• Longitudinal studies follow people over time.

Developmental Psychology's Themes

• How genetic inheritance interacts with experiences to influence development.
• Even biologically initiated differences may be amplified by nurture, and we are not solely formed by either nature or nurture but from the interaction between them.
• Biological, psychological and social-cultural forces interact.
• Despite cultural differences, humans share a similar life cycle, such as speaking to infants alike.
• Cultural differences including average school acheivement are superficial.
• Most differences are person-to-person within groups; differences between groups are subtle.

Continuity and Stages

• Development can be viewed as a gradual, cumulative process or as a sequence of distinct stages.
• Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development and Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial development both propose stage theories.
• Modern psychologists recognize the usefulness of the stage concept while acknowledging that some research casts doubt on age-linked stages.
• The human brain experiences growth spurts during childhood and puberty corresponding to Piaget's stages.

Stability and Change

• Stability and change coexist, with characteristics like temperament being very stable over time.
• Inhibited 14-month-olds often become reserved, introverted adults.
• Out-of-control children are more prone to risky behaviors later in life.
• Smiles in childhood and college photos correlate with enduring marriages.
• Social attitudes are less stable than temperament, especially during adolescence.
• People display an end-of-history illusion, recognizing past changes but underestimating future changes.
• Psychological stability provides identity, change offers hope and adaptability.

Module 3.2a Physical Development Across the Lifespan: Prenatal Development, Infancy, and Childhood

• Life begins with the merging of genetic histories during conception.

Conception

• A woman's eggs are formed inside her developing female self, and a man produces sperm cells non stop after puberty starting at a rate of 1000 during the second when reading this phrase.
• An egg has to get released by her mother's ovary, a cell roughly the size of the period that ends this sentence and approaching to be fertilized by space voyagers and some 250 million deposited sperm as they begin their frantic upstream race, which leads to them approaching the cell 85,000 times their own size, with only the small numbers reaching it's final digest of enzymes to eat away the egg's protective coating, after that in half a day elapsed the sperm and eggs fuse into one.

Prenatal Development and the Newborn

• Zygotes, fertilized eggs, have a survival rate beyond their first 2 weeks of less than half.
• The germinal stage is completed when the zygote attaches to the mother's wall, starting around 37 weeks of human relationship.
• An embryo's organs start to form after 6 weeks and the heart begins to beat.
• After 9 weeks the human form can be unmistakably seen.
• The fetus has a chance to survive if born prematurely.

Prenatal Stages

• Genetic and environmental factors affects the bodies development.
• At 6 weeks, a fetus can be responsive to it's mother's voice.
• Newborns prefer their mom's voice and hearing her native language, a fake language they learn in the womb.
• They also learn to adapt to vibrating devices on their mother's abdomen and recall the sound of it 4 weeks later as they are mildly responsive to the honking vibrations.
• Harmful agents known as teratogens like nicotine or marijuana or alcohol can damage an embryo or fetus affecting their nervous system and making offspring like alcohol and increase a teen's lifetime drinking use.

AP Practice Note

• Fetal alcohol syndrome is a lifelong result of abnormalities in physical and mental aspects often caused by drinking and drug use during birth periods. Though this cannot be tested on humans. Instead, they conduct studies in animals to better test the effects of the teratogens on prenatal stages of embryo-fetus periods.
• Heavy stress can cause a threat to birth and increase chances of early delivery, malnutrition, maternal illnesses, and genetic mutations.

The Competent Newborn

• Babies are born equipped with automatic reflexes suited ideally for survival like reflex responses to pain and swiping or turning their heads whenever it touches for breathing. Others are rooting and sucking whenever they are hungry.
• The startle reflex is when the arms spring out on new items that trigger them.
• Newborns that William James presumed live in blooming and buzzing assumptions, which was challenged in the 1960's when scientist found ways that babies can tell you a lot if you gaze, suck, and turn their heads to machines that capitalize these acts wired for electronic gear.
• Habituation is used to ask infants what they can see and remember.
• Infants prefer looking at objects 8-12 inches away or a drawing of a face-like object.

Preferences

• Within days after birth, a brain's neural network records their mothers smell.
• Chamomile scent to prevent nipple soreness or smells over any tastes or preferences. These methods show the remarkable abilities with which we enter our world.

Physical Development in Infancy and Childhood

• Maturation is a sequence of biological growth, for humans it can help babies learn to walk however abuse can affect a person's life, otherwise it comes as factory installed biological patterns. Nature sets courses of development while our nurture adjuts our experience.

Brain Development

• The brain in the mothers womb forms near a quarter of a million a minutes with the cortex overproducing with numbers peeking at 28 weeks.
• From infancy their minds develop together on neural hardware software
• The nervous system is often immature and their rapid development helps their brain grow.
• Rapid growth in the frontal lobes from ages 3-6 provide rationalization through attention and behavior.

Association Areas

• The links linked with thinking or memory become the last places to develop, after that, so do mental abilities as they surge to puberty with fiber pathways to support their language agility self control. Tens of millions of Synapse form and stay under the influence, but they lose it with their pruning processes.

Genes and experiences

• Overall, genes decide where, instead of details leave imprints onto the brain. So many early experiences leave prints on that affect a rats brains weight with extra toy attachments and heavier and thicker cortextes than those that do not.
• Touch or stimulation or massage benefit rats and babies, skin to skin contact help, and even better development in as little as ten years.

Sights and smells

• Brain Maturation contains abundance to neural connections activating and strengthening other neural pathways like a forest in less traveled lands.
• Critical skills like new languages are easier to master during early childhood when connections are still able to be used. Otherwise vision will die or be given to other cells without early vision.

Motor Development

• The brain helps enable fine motor function. Skills emerge through maturation in order from sitting to crawling to running whether or not imitation is used.
• Genes help guide them. Usually 50% of people walk near 11 months with identical twins nearly walkin on the same day. Bladder muscular control can produce a toilet trained toddler, with nurture having the chance to amend nature into an exercise of babies and caregivers to stimulate learning the action to walk from countries in the Caribbean.

Brain Maturation and Infant Memory

• Conscious recall wanes to about 4, scientists say its rapid neurons or infantile amnesia. In Rovee-Collier's experiment, children repeated the study with movements and kicking even recognizing what they did 1 month after that.

Module 3.2b Physical Development Across the Lifespan: Adolescence and Adulthood

• Puberty starts adolescence, ending with societal achievement.
• Adolescence is sexual maturation, a period of biological maturity and social dependence creating storm and stress from parental control.
• Social disconnection during adolescence increases risks for negative outcomes.
• Early maturation can be a challenge, increasing mental health risks, greater for those w/ reactive temperaments.
• Physical maturity that out paces emotional may lead to problems, associating with harassment and more rumination.

The Teenage Brain

• Brain cells increase connections until puberty and has selective pruning in adolescence. What we don't use we lose.
• Maturation of the prefrontal cortex enables great communication with the brain.
• Adolescence may lead to issues that could be from the incomplete prefrontal cortex while dealing with risky behaviors.
• The teenage brain is considered forceful accelerators with less development.

Adulthood

• During adulthood, mental changes slowly transition people to notice gradual declines that affect performance and perception.
• People experience menopuase in their 50s after a period of gradual decline in a sexual atmosphere.
• Life expectancy from 1950-2015 risen for great achievements yet lead to problems of depression and anxiety if not treated.

Physical Changes In Late Adulthood

• After 40 body decline causes heart failure and muscle decline. The aging eye diminishes visual sharpness, a problem one can fix with visual aids at age 65. The senses also decline, losing touch with taste and smell and hearing certain sounds.
• Body's disease fighting slows while the brain experiences cognitive decline while gaining ability to process information, but is no match for a young adult.

Module 3.3a Gender and Sexual Orientation: Gender Development

• Social and cultural factors influence our gender expectations and identities, exploring issues like differences between male and females alike, and how and why they alter.
• We must note is that our unique body defines our sex and our mind determines gender (male/female), so it's important to not conflate the two. If chromosomes aren't the case, it's likely to be intersex.
• One can compare/contrast similarities and differences in physical and relational aggression terms.

Three General Gender Differences

• The average male and female do differ in aggression, power over others, and how linked they feel to others.
• Men's heightened strength and risks are known as heightened strengths and risks.
• Females tend to be more collaborative and intelligent.

Prenatal Stage

• Early childhood is when one can have extra early childhood to be fluent at new languages is still open in order to be that new person later on. Use it then or lose it.

Physical Development

• Maturation during childhood develops through a series from toddler, teenager and into adulthood slowly.

Adolescent and Sexual Development

• An embryo looks like a fetus for what may be considered young after development in the sixth month or another language called Latin. Hormones affect it all.
• Genes activate the switch to produce testosterone male hormone for sex development. The increased sex hormone levels cause the fetal brain to develop wiring.
• It can be seen in the adolescent stage with pubertal changes, which is triggered for a period when dramatic shifts emerge.
• The primary sex characteristics include testes, ovaries ,internal genitalia, and non reproductive characteristics.

AP Testing Note

• There is the presence of what is meant by if a pregnant woman never smokes, vapes or drinks alone. Teratogens, agents like chemicals and viruses, can stop the develop of an agent early when the woman is pregant.

Nature of Gender

• Although bio isn't said, influenced is the word, on how sexual development is controlled genetically or physiologically with differing hormones but long before were you born. Some are Kline Felber or Turner Syndromes, to help a surgery to assign an ambiguously determined sex or gender.

Nurture of Gender

• Biology is the outline and culture is for details. The gender may also define what people should do, so people may see roles in Thin Slices, for the beginning of the center for studies and also to test their knowledge in Science Practice.
• A cultural influence from parents and their actions towards a gender.

3.3b Gender and Sexual Orientation: The Biology and Psychology of Sex

• Hard to talk about gender without mentioning Sexuality even for the 1% of us considered asexual. Sexual feelings and bodies are affected biologically and psychologically, a biology pioneered at a Kinsey university with psychology.

Sexual Behavior

• High amounts trigger high amounts of behavior especially testosterone and lower amounts mean otherwise as it follows puberty or hormones. Women will be in-tune with testosterone levels, while men are hardly affected but rather by the levels of stimulation present.
• The environment and experiences in both lead our world in certain ways. Sights and sounds will play a role, but will be hard to have or will reduce satisfaction in a partner.

Sexual Motivations

• Media influences this field by giving the wrong cues that affect a teen's risky and negative behaviors.
• Although it is not a need, the sex life of each can have a lifetime in it. But at a time, the teens will open to see if certain other times are more suited for what the conscious mind knows.
• Both play with ethics and reasons to think on what to expect.

During Infancy and Childhood

• In the brain, nerve cells are caused by heredity and experiences. There are brain cells during their growing, though timing in this function can be affected by society and what they have around. It can be related to puberty and what you may regard on your first time.

3.3c Gender and Sexual Orientation: Sexual Orientation

• According to the APA is a person's sexual and emotional attraction to another person and the affiliation to such an act.
• Many people believe the opposite, or that is something related to you. The APA is that of what the human behavior will tell you that you could not test.

Sexual Orientation

• In the world the gender is what is made by someone to be born with a set mind and a way to think and feel.

During Life

• During the teen years certain things like drug usage can show. Most become more Conscientious.
• There, it is important there is stability to see your personality.

Check and Explain

• What to study and the ideas for you all to remember in the test. Make sure you go over to see what is expected. The ideas can be long but will help later down the line with your life and what to expect.

Module 3.4 Cognitive Development Across the Lifespan

• Jean Piaget studied children's developing cognition all the activities with thinking.
• Piaget felt the child's mind grows through a series of stages like simple reactions to his own power . As it develops into schemas, it can be known as baby's first sign or way to show interest or understanding to other senses over time during stages of psychological development called "cognitive development."

Key Terms: Stage

• As they get older they realize the stage theories can be used. What children know what that life proceeds and they call to mind related linked changes as these age theories have added to the development on what the life cycle is as they become older.

Physical Development:

• It has Maturation, babies stand and then nouns.
• For children an idea called ACE helps with patterns but are known to be inborn.
• Experience nurture helps to adjust while the other says the opposite with scenes. Neural connections help them over time while more development leads brain size increasing later.

Module 3.5 Communication and Language Development

• Humans are able to "eavesdrop" each others brain through transmission from air against someones eardrum, translating infornation and communicating language into meaning. As a result, its as simple and complex as vibrations to express the languages we build.
• It is innate to all cultures.
• When young the early signs of seeing and learning can also help with future memories as the brain regions important can atrophy with age and also a net with that reduction.
• Some examples or facts we can't do, but see a person still being great with how different they act.

Test your knowledge of developmental psychology concepts, including the impact of early experiences, the use of research methods like gazing time, and the interplay of maturation and experience on a child's development. Explore topics like the effects of ACEs and instinctive parental responses.