Developmental Psychology Definitions

Developmental Psychology

• Studies human growth and change across the lifespan.

Definitions

• Cross-sectional design: Compares different age groups at one time.
• Gene-environment interaction: Genes and environment together influence development.
• Gene expression: Genes turning on to shape behaviour and traits.
• Longitudinal design: Studies the same people over time.
• Primary sex characteristics: Reproductive organs and functions.
• Reflexes: Involuntary newborn responses.
• Equilibration: Balance between old and new info.
• Puberty: Physical and hormonal maturation.
• Viability: A fetus' ability to survive outside the womb.
• Mental representation: Forming mental images of objects or events.
• Scaffolding: Guided support for new skills.
• Zone of proximal development: Learning potential with/without help.
• Object permanence: Knowing things exist when unseen.
• Imprinting: Forming early attachments.
• Egocentrism: Difficulty understanding perspectives of others.

Challenges to Consider

• Post hoc fallacy: Assuming A causes B just because B happened after A.
• Cohort effects: Observed differences in characteristics/behaviours among groups born around the same time.
• Bidirectional influence: Development is a two-way street where development shapes experiences and experiences shape development.

Common Myths

• Infant determinism: The misconception that the profound influence of early experiences is overstated.
• Childhood fragility: The misconception that children are more vulnerable to stress than adults.

Core Debates

• Nature vs nurture: The debate over whether genetic makeup or the environment has more of an influence on development.

Disruptions to Fetal Development

• Teratogens: Environmental factors like drugs or smoking have a negative impact on development.
• Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: Brain and body damage that happens when a substances is consumed in pregnancy.
• Genetic Disruptions: Disorders, random errors in cell division.
• Prematurity: Birth before 36 weeks increases chances of complication in life.

Factors Influencing Motor Development

• Physical maturity
• Cultural/parenting practices

Physical Development

• Childhood: Dramatic changes in body size occur during the first 20 years of life.
• Young Adulthood: Physical peak is obtained in the early 20s.
• Midlife: Mild changes, potentially including menopause.
• Late Adulthood: Muscle decreases, with a 5% decrease in brain weight.

Cognitive Development Theories

• Explanations on how we learn, communicate, think, and remember.
• Differ in whether they are stage-like or gradual, domain-general or specific, and focus on the source of learning.

Jean Piaget's Theory

• Focused on child development and epistemology.
• Assimilation: Acquiring new knowledge.
• Accommodation: Adapting to new information, forcing changes between stages.
• Sensorimotor Stage (birth-2 years): Focus on here and now.
• Preoperational Stage (2-7 years): Can form mental representations of experience.
• Concrete Operations Stage (7-11 years): Can perform mental operations for physical events.
• Formal Operations Stage (11-adulthood): Can understand hypothetical reasoning.
• Influenced the way we think and learn, viewing it as an active rather than passive process.
• Underestimated children's competence, overestimated adults' abilities, and saw development as less general/more domain-specific.

Lev Vygotsky

• Emphasized the roles of social and cultural influences on development.
• Differed from Piaget in their views on how children learn.
• Both supported child-centered approaches.

Cognitive Landmarks

• Theory of Mind: Understanding that others have different thoughts.
• Naive Physics: Understanding basic physical laws.
• Counting and Math: Learning to recite numbers early.

Cognitive Changes in Adolescence

• The frontal lobe is not fully developed until late adolescence.

Cognitive Changes in Late Adulthood

• Cognitive decline: Recall information, speed of processing.
• Stable or Increase: Cued recall/recognition, remembrance of important information, vocabulary/knowledge.

Kohlberg's Moral Development

• Used moral problems to find principles people used to solve them.
• Preconventional: Focused on punishment and reward.
• Conventional: Focused on societal values.
• Postconventional: Focused on internal moral principles.
• Criticism: Cultural bias, differing orientations, low correlation with moral behavior, issues involving verbal reasoning, assumes thinking precedes emotion.

Temperament

• Early-appearing, largely genetic, with three major styles.
• Easy (40%)
• Difficult (10%)
• Slow-to-warm-up (15%)

Early Social Development

• Infants initially develop interest in others quickly after birth.
• Stranger anxiety starts around 8-9 months, peaking at 12-15 months.
• Attachment forms close emotional connections with certain people.
• Contact comfort shows that children bond with those that provide nourishment.

Romanian Orphans Study

• Longer stays in low-quality orphanages correlate with poorer outcomes.
• Shorter stays (adopted out by 6 months) correlate with better outcomes.

Parenting Styles

• Permissive: Lenient, little discipline, very affectionate.
• Authoritarian: Very strict, punishing, little affection.
• Authoritative: Supportive but sets clear and firm limits.
• Uninvolved: Neglectful and ignoring.

Life Changes in Adulthood

• Careers, job satisfaction, love, commitment, and parenthood.

Measuring Age

• Biological: Physical functioning.
• Psychological: Attitudes and agility.
• Functional: Fulfillment of social roles.
• Social: Adherence to age-appropriate behaviours.

Stress, Coping, & Health

• Stress: Tension, discomfort, or physical symptoms from stressors that strain coping ability.
• Hassles: Minor difficulties that strain coping ability.
• Catharsis: Expressing painful feelings.
• Acute Stress Disorder: Short-term reaction to trauma, anxiety, and flashbacks.
• Crisis Debriefing: Discussing trauma.
• Emotion-Focused Coping: Managing emotions without solving the underlying problem.
• Fight or Flight: Body's automatic response to danger.
• General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS): Three-stage stress response of alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.
• Hardiness: Resilience and control in stressful situations.
• Health Psychology: How stress impacts health.
• Personal Inertia: Resistance to change.
• Proactive Coping: Preparing for stress.
• Problem-Focused Coping: Directly addressing stressors.
• Psychoneuroimmunology: Study of stress effects on immunity.
• PTSD: Long-term stress disorder after trauma.
• Ruminating: Repetitive negative thinking.
• Social Support: Help to manage stress.
• Stressors as Stimuli: Identifies stressful events.
• Stress as a Transaction: How people interpret and cope with stressful events.
• Stress as a Response: Measures physiological and physical reactions to stress.

General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

• Alarm Reaction: Fight/flight response activated.
• Resistance: Finding strategies to adapt and cope with stress.
• Exhaustion: Resistance breaks down following prolonged stressors.

Diversity of Stress Response

• Women: More likely to tend (nurture) and befriend (seek social support).
• Long-lasting stress reaction: Acute stress disorder or PTSD.
• PTSD affects 5% of males and 10% of females.

Immune System

• Defends against bacteria, viruses, and illnesses.
• Increased stress weakens the immune response.

Coping with Stress

• Gaining control of situations can relieve stress.
• Behavioural Control: Problem-focused coping.
• Cognitive Control: Emotion-focused coping and collective self-esteem.
• Informational Control (Proactive Coping): Anticipating problems/stress to prepare.
• Emotional Control: Ability to suppress and express emotions.

Promoting Health

• Stop smoking.
• Curb alcohol consumption.
• Maintain healthy weight.
• Engage in exercise.

Complementary and Alternative Medicine

• Alternative: Treatments used instead of traditional medicine.
• Complementary: Therapies used with conventional medicine.
• Biological-Based: Herbal supplements/treatments with ineffective evidence.
• Manipulative Methods: Chiropractic.
• Mediation: Enhanced attention/awareness with positive effects.
• Energy Medicines: Based on mapping energy field and managing disruptions (acupuncture).
• CAM: Struggles when tested with a placebo.

Social Psychology

• Studies social interactions, origins, and effects on individuals.

Definitions

• Attributes: Characteristics or qualities of people or things.
• Cognitive dissonance: Mental discomfort from conflicting beliefs or values.
• Conformity: Adjusting to align with the behaviour or thinking norms of a group.
• Deindividuation: Loss of self-awareness and accountability in groups.
• Diffusion of responsibility: Reduced feeling of responsibility in the presence of others.
• Discrimination: Unequal treatment based on race, age, or gender.
• Enlightenment effect: Changes in behavior/attitude from gaining new knowledge.
• Fundamental attribution error: Overemphasizing personal traits and underestimating situation to explain behaviours.
• Groupthink: Harmony in groups makes irrational decisions.
• Inoculation effect: Building resistance to persuasion.
• Just-world hypothesis: Belief that people get what they deserve.
• Mass hysteria: Collective anxiety or irrational behavior spreading through a group.
• Obedience: Complying with authority.
• Persuasion: Influencing beliefs or actions.
• Pluralistic ignorance: Mistakenly believing that personal thoughts/feelings differ from the group.
• Prejudice: Preconceived opinions that are not based on reason.
• Prosocial behaviour: Actions intended to benefit others.
• Relational aggression: Harmful social actions, like rumors.
• Scapegoat hypothesis: Blaming a person or group for problems that were not of their making.
• Social loafing: Exerting less effort when working as a group than when alone.
• Social Psychology: Study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by others.
• Stereotype: Oversimplified beliefs generalized about a group.
• Bystander Effect: People are less willing to help when there are other people present.
• Ultimate attribution error: Attributing negative behaviors of out-group members to character flaws.
• Urban legends: False stories believed to be true.
• Social Contagions: The spread of behaviors, emotions, or ideas like a virus.
• Social Psychology: How the environment influences behavior.
• Personality Psychology: How individual traits influence behavior.
• Conformity: Going along with others' opinions.
  • Normative Influence
  • Informational Influence
• Deindividuation: Increased vulnerability to social influence.
• Groupthink: Emphasis on group agreement, which inhibits critical thought.
  • High cohesion
  • Group is superior
  • Leader takes position

Ways to resist groupthink

• Persuasive leader
• Disconnect members from outside world
• Discourage questioning of assumptions
• Gradually indoctrinate members
• Obedience: Adhering to orders from higher authority.

Stanley Milgram

• Designed the experiment to test influence of authority and the holocaust.
• This experiment became a landmark study.

Prosocial and Antisocial Behaviour

• Prosocial: Intended to help others.
• Antisocial: Includes aggressive acts.
• Bystander Non-Intervention: Studied when people fail to help, this increases when more people are present.

Aggression

• Interpersonal provocation
• Frustration
• Media influence
• Aggressive Cues

Persuasion Techniques

• Foot-in-the-door: Start small and increase incrementally.
• Door-in-the-face: Start big and then reduce scope.
• Low-ball: Add-ons to a low price.
• "But you are free": This creates the impression of choice.

Routes to Persuasion

• Central Route: Direct and informative.
• Peripheral Route: Focuses on surface aspects.

Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination

• Stereotypes: Cognitive, generalizations about groups.
• Prejudice: Affective, negative evaluation of groups.
• Discrimination: Behavioral, treating groups differently.
• Ultimate Attribution Error: Attributing bad behavior to group disposition.

Nature of Prejudice

• Prejudices are universal (adaptive conservatism).
• In-group bias: Favoring members of our own group.
• Out-group homogeneity: Viewing people outside the group as similar .

Roots of Prejudice

• Scapegoat Hypothesis: Needing to blame other groups for misfortune.
• Belief in a Just World: Needing to see the world as fair, even if it isn’t.
• Conformity

Combating Prejudice

• Robber's Cave Study encourages working towards common goals.
• Jigsaw classrooms give diverse group members expertise.