Developmental Psychology Concepts

• Human Development is the scientific study of change and stability processes throughout a human lifespan.
• Life-Span development is the concept of from conception to death.
• Social construction is a concept or practice that seems natural but exists because a culture or society invented it.
  • Examples include gender roles, race, marriage, and culture.

Domains of Development:

• Physical development is the the body and brain's development, including changes in sensory capacities, motor skills, and health.
• Cognitive development involves mental abilities, such as learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity.
• Psychosocial development constitutes changes in emotions, personality, and social relationships.
• Heredity is inborn traits inherited from biological parents.
• Individual differences are variations in characteristics, influences, or developmental outcomes.

Nuclear vs. Extended Families:

• Nuclear families include a household with a mother, father, siblings, or stepsiblings.
• Extended families include a household with grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, or distant relatives.
• Socioeconomic status (SES) is a combination of economic and social factors, including income, education, and occupation.
• An ethnic group unites by ancestry, race, religion, language, or national origins, creating a shared identity.
• Risk factors are conditions increasing the likelihood of negative developmental outcomes.
• Life-Span Development's key principles:
  • Development is lifelong, multidimensional and multidirectional.
• Normative Influences are events occurring similarly for most people in a group, like getting married or graduating high school.
• Non-normative Influences strongly affect a group during its formative period, such as losing a family member or encountering a earthquake.
• Theory is a coherent set of logically related concepts that seeks to organize, explain, and predict data.
• A hypothesis offers possible explanations for phenomena and predicts research outcomes.

Continuous and Discontinuous Development:

• Continuous development occurs gradually in small steps.
• Discontinuous development occurs in distinct stages with sudden changes.

Qualitative vs. Quantitative Change:

• Qualitative change involves discontinuous changes in kind, structure, or organization.
• Quantitative change means continuous changes in number or amount.
• Psychology is WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic).

Theoretical Perspectives:

• The Psychoanalytic perspective, influenced by Sigmund Freud, assumes humans are reactive, progressing through developmental stages via unconscious forces like hunger, sex, and aggression.
• The Learning perspective views human development as changes in behavior resulting from experience and adaptation.
  • Behaviorism explains learning through associations, rewards, punishments, and observing others.
• Cognitive perspective explains how people organize knowledge, adjust thinking through assimilation and accommodation, and learn through social interaction.
  • The information-processing approach views people as active thinkers, developing continuously.
• The Contextual perspective proposed by Urie Bronfenbrenner's bioecological theory identifies five levels of environmental influence: microsystem, mesosystem, ecosystem, and macrosystem.
• Evolutionary/Sociobiological perspective, influenced by Charles Darwin’s evolution theory, emphasizes "survival of the fittest," natural selection, and passing on strong traits.
• Albert Bandura's social learning theory assumes reciprocal determinism such that a person acts on the world as the world acts on the person.
• Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is the difference between what a child can do alone versus with help.
• Scaffolding is the support parents and teachers provide until the child can do it alone.

Erikson's first three Psychosocial Stages:

• Basic trust versus mistrust: Babies develop a sense of whether the world is safe.
• Autonomy versus shame and doubt: Children develop a balance of independence and self-sufficiency.
• Initiative versus guilt: Children develop initiative without being overwhelmed by guilt.
• Observational learning is learning appropriate behavior by watching and imitating others.

Conditioning

• Classical conditioning associates a stimulus that doesn't elicit a response with one that does.
• Operant conditioning associates a behavior with its consequences.
• Ethics are important in research to protect participants, ensure honesty and fairness, and maintain trust in scientific findings.
• Epigenetics is a mechanism turning genes on/off and determining body cell functions.
• Cultural Beliefs about Prenatal Development is the shared understanding across cultures that the prenatal environment shapes human development.
• Cephalocaudal principle dictates development from "head to tail".
• Proximal principle says body parts near the center develop before extremities.
• Ultrasound is a prenatal procedure using sound waves to detect the fetal outline and movements.
• A teratogen is an environmental agent interfering with normal prenatal development, like a virus, drug, or radiation.
• Maternal Stress and Depression during pregnancy can have negative developmental effects.
• A neonate is a newborn up to 4 weeks old.
• APGAR Rate measures a newborn's condition, assessing appearance, pulse, grimace, activity, and respiration.
• Low-birth weight babies are those weighing less than 5½ pounds at birth.

Premature vs. Postmature Babies:

• Premature Infants are born before completing the 37th week of gestation.
• Postmature Infants are not yet born 2 weeks after expected or 42 weeks after the last menstrual period.
• LBW correlates with demographic and socioeconomic factors such as being a young or older mother.
• Stillbirth is the death of a fetus at or after the 20th week of gestation.
• Causes of neonatal death include birth defects, prematurity, birth complications, and infections.
• Infant mortality rate measures babies born alive who die within the first year.
• Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden and unexplained death of an apparently healthy infant.
• A baby's capacity to use their senses includes the use of hear, touch, smell, taste, and hear.

Gross vs. Fine Motor Skills:

• Gross motor skills involve large muscles.
• Fine motor skills involve small muscles and eye-hand coordination.

Cognitive Approach:

• The Behaviorist approach focuses on how learning happens via classical and operant conditioning.
• The Psychometric approach studies intelligence and abilities by measuring skills.
• Piagetian approach explains cognitive development through stages.
• Information-processing approach compares the human mind to a computer.
• The Cognitive neuroscience approach examines brain structures and functions.
• The Social- contextual approach highlights social interactions, culture, and environment.
• Early Intervention systematically provides services for families with young children's needs.
• Piaget's cognitive development's first stage is the sensorimotor stage.

Habituation vs. Dishabituation:

• Habituation is a decreasing response to a stimulus due to familiarity.
• Dishabituation is an increased responsiveness after a new stimulus presentation.
• Language is communication with words and grammar, determined by parent interaction with the child.
• The Still face Experiment tests how infants respond to a lack of caregiver emotional connection.
• Language develops through social interaction.

Emotions:

• (Self-conscious, Self-awareness, and Self-evaluative) are subjective reactions to experience with physiological and behavioral changes.

Personality:

• Emotions depend on self-awareness, realization of separate existence, and social standards.
• Personality is a unique blend of emotions, temperament, thought, and behavior.

Temperament Patterns:

• "Easy children" (40%) are generally happy, rhythmic, and accepting of new experiences.
• "Difficult children" (10%) are irritable, harder to please, and irregular.
• "Slow-to-warm-up children" (15%) are mild and slow to adjust.
• Altruistic behavior helps others with no expectation of reward.
• Empathy is the ability to understand and share others' feelings.
• Cultural Influences on Temperament: caregiving practices reinforcing values.

Gender vs. Gender-typing:

• Significance of being either male or female.
• Socialization is where children learn gender roles early on.
• Erikson's first psychosocial development stage is trust versus mistrust.
• Attachment (4 types): Securely Attached, Insecure-Avoidant, Insecure-Resistant/Ambivalent, Disorganized
• Children who are Secure have attributes like High self-esteem, socials skills, emotional stability and independence.
• Social referencing is understanding through another's perception.
• Self-concept is the sense of self with descriptive and evaluative traits.
• Erikson's second stage is autonomy versus shame and doubt.

Self-regulation and Development:

• A child's independent control plus parenting styles influences self-regulation.

Maltreatment in Children:

• 4 Types of maltreatment in children are: Neglect, sexual abuse, emotional maltreatment and physical abuse.
• Shaken baby Syndrome is maltreatment causing brain damage or death.
• Failure to Thrive is slowed physical growth with poor development.
• Stranger Anxiety is wariness of strangers.
• Separation Anxiety is distress when a caregiver leaves.
• Long Term Effects of Maltreatment may include risky sexual activity, juvenile delinquency, and alcohol and drug use.

Test your knowledge of developmental psychology! This quiz covers key concepts such as childhood poverty, multidirectional development, cultural influences, non-normative influences, socioeconomic status, hypotheses and psychological theories.