Psychology Chapter 3: Genetics and Development

Human Development

• Focuses on the scientific study of systematic changes and stability in people throughout life
• Life-span perspective views development as lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, multidisciplinary, and contextual and as a process that involves growth, maintenance, and regulation of loss

Domains of Development

• Physical Development: growth of the body and brain, sensory capacities, motor skills, and health
• Cognitive Development: learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity
• Psychosocial Development: emotions, personality, and social relationships

Social Construction

• A concept or practice that is an invention of a particular culture or society

Stability-Change Issue

• Involves the degree to which early traits and characteristics persist through life or change

Continuity-Discontinuity Issue

• Focuses on the gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity) involved in development

Maturation

• The unfolding of natural sequence of physical change and behavior patterns

Behavioral Genetics

• The scientific study of the extent to which genetic and environmental differences among people and animals are responsible for differences in their traits

Heritability

• A proportion of all the variability in a trait

Gregor Mendel

• Studied heredity in plants

Selective Breeding

• Involves attempting to breed animals for a particular trait

Twin Studies

• Studies to determine whether traits are heritable
• Concordance rate measures the percentage of pairs of people studied in which, if one member displays a trait, the other does too

Adoption Studies

• Studies to determine whether traits are heritable
• Studies with adopted children

Family Studies

• Studies to determine whether traits are heritable
• Studies of naturally occurring relatives

Gene-Environment Correlations

• Passive: genes are linked to environmental factors, such as parental genotypes influence child's environment
• Evocative: child's genotype influences reactions from others
• Active: children's genotypes influence the kinds of environments they seek

Heredity

• Inborn traits and characteristics provided by the child's parents

Environment

• Influences from outside the body, starting from conception throughout life

Individual Differences

• Differences in gender, height, weight, and body build; in health and energy level

Context of Development

• Family: Nuclear and Extended Family
• Socioeconomic status: Combination of economic and social factors describing an individual or family, including income, education, and occupation
• Culture: Society's or group's total way of life. Ethnic gloss and race
• History: Timeframe

Developmental Psychology- Research Methods and Ethics

• General Principles:
  • Beneficence and nonmaleficence
  • Fidelity and responsibility
  • Integrity
  • Justice
  • Respect for people's rights and dignity
• General Principles of Respect for Dignity of Persons and Peoples: Respect for all human beings (diversity, culture, beliefs); free and informed consent, privacy, fairness, and justice
• General Principles of Competent Caring for the Well-being of Persons and Peoples; Honesty, truthfulness, open and appropriate communications; respect for professional boundaries; multiple relationships, conflict of interest
• General Principles of Integrity: Honesty, truthfulness, open communications; appropriate professional boundaries

Developmental Research Designs

• Cross-sectional: Children of different ages assessed at one point in time. More economical, but individual differences and trajectories may be obscured.
• Longitudinal: Studies the same group or person over time. Can track individual patterns of continuity and change. Time-consuming and expensive
• Sequential: Data collected on successive cross-sectional or longitudinal samples. Tracks people of different ages over time and allows separating age-related change from cohort effects. More complex
• Cross-sectional & Longitudinal & Sequential

Developmental Theories- Psychosexual Theory by Freud

• Id: pleasure principle (impulsive, irrational, selfish, seeks immediate gratification)
• Ego: reality principle (rational, finds realistic ways to gratify instincts)
• Superego: morality principle (internalized moral standards)
• Human nature is selfish and aggressive and shaped by early experiences
• Stage-oriented developmental model of personality

Developmental Theories- Psychosocial Theory by Erikson

• Stage theory focusing on an individual's social interaction/relationship in different stages.
• Focuses on an individual's social interaction/relationship in different stages of development.

Cognitive Development by Piaget

• Constructivism: Children actively construct new understandings of their world based on experiences.
• Schemes: Ways of organizing information that govern a child's behavior in specific situations.
• Organization: Create categories and schemes to organize information.
• Adaptation: How children handle new information in light of what they already know
• Assimilation: Incorporating new info into existing schema
• Accommodation: Adjusting one's schema to fit the new information and experiences
• Equilibration: Children want to achieve equilibrium by matching understanding of their world to experience.

Sensorimotor Stage

• Ages from birth up to about 2 years
• Focus on manipulating their environment.
• Acquire object permanence

Pre-operational Stage

• Ages 2-7, use mental representation and symbolic thought that extends to language, numbers, and imagination
• Increase in pretend play and symbolic behavior

Concrete Operations Stage

• Ages 7-11, logical thought in familiar context
• Increase in logical reasoning.
• Conservation: The understanding that a quantity does not vary despite changes in its appearance
• Principle of Reversibility and Identity

Formal Operations Stage

• Ages 11+, abstraction and hypothetical thought
• Reasoning about abstract concepts
• Hypothetical-Deductive Reasoning: Methodical, scientific approach to problem solving.
• Imaginary audience and personal fable

Learning Theories (Behaviorism and Social Learning)

• Reinforcement and punishment
• Classical conditioning: associating a stimulus and behavior
• Operant and observational learning
• Social learning theory: Modeling and observational learning

Cognitive Developmental Stages

• Object Permanence realization that an object continues to exist even when out of sight
• Dual Representation Hypothesis: Difficulty in grasping spatial relationships because of the need to keep more than one mental representation in mind at once

Attachment Theory by Ainsworth

• Attachment: An enduring emotional bond between an infant and a caregiver. A secure base allows the child to explore and use the parent as a source of comfort.
• Strange situation (an experimental procedure designed to assess individual differences in attachment)
• Types of insecure attachment:
  • Anxious (ambivalent) attachment: Child is distressed when caregiver leaves and ambivalent when caregiver returns. Often from inconsistent parenting.
  • Avoidant attachment: Child is not distressed when caregiver leaves and does not react to their return. From rejecting-unresponsive or intrusive-overly stimulating caregivers.
  • Disorganized attachment: Child does not react in a consistent manner to their caregivers behavior. It's often a result of a frightening or frightening caregiver

Moral Development by Kohlberg

• Levels of moral development:
  • Preconventional morality: Obedience and punishment, individual instrumental purpose
  • Conventional morality: interpersonal relationships and maintaining social order, laws
  • Postconventional morality: Social contract and individual rights, universal principles
• Moral Reasoning: a gradual process where a person understands what's right and wrong.
• Stages of moral development: Obedience and punishment, individualism, and exchange; good interpersonal relationships; maintaining social order; social contract; universal ethical principles.

Ecological Model by Bronfenbrenner

• Microsystem: everyday environment (family, school, health services, peers)
• Mesosystem: linkages between microsystems (linking home and school/family-peer groups)
• Exosystem: External environment that indirectly affect the child (parents' workplace, neighborhood resources, extended family)
• Macrosystem: Overarching cultural patterns/beliefs
• Chronosystem: Change over time (cultural changes, historical events)

Test your knowledge of key concepts in psychology regarding genetics, heredity, and life-span development. This quiz covers essential terms and theories relating to individual differences, cognitive skills, and the interplay of environment and genetics. Ideal for students studying psychology at any level.