CHAPTERS 1, 2, AND 3 TEST!!!

CHAPTER ONE
 DEVELOPMENT – the pattern of change that begins at conception and continues through the life
span. Most development involves growth, although it also includes decline brought on by aging
and dying.
 Child Development
o Original Sin – children are born into the world corrupted, with an inclination toward
evil.
o Tabula Rasa – The idea, proposed by John Locke, that children are like a “blank tablet”
o Innate Goodness – The idea presented by the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau
that children are inherently good.
 Characteristics of the Life-Span Perspective
o Life-Span Perspective – the perspective that development is lifelong,
multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, multidisciplinary, and contextual;
involves growth, maintenance, and regulation; and it constructed through biological,
sociocultural, and individual factors working together.
 Multidimensional – age, body, mind, emotions, relationships all affect each other
 Multidirectional – dimensions or components of a dimension expand and others shrink
o Ex: adolescence’s relationships – grow more romantically and decrease with friends;
language being learned, harder for someone to learn at a later age
 Plastic – has the capacity for change
 Multidisciplinary – questions regarding intellectual and relationship combinations
 Contextual
o Context – the setting in which development occurs, which is influenced by historical,
economic, social, and cultural factors.
o Normative age-graded influences – influences that are similar for individuals in a
particular age group
 Puberty and menopause; formal education and retirement
o Normative history-graded influences – Influences that are common to people of a
particular generation because of historical circumstances
 WW2, Civil Rights Movement, women’s rights, 9/11, technology advances
o Non-normative life events – Unusual occurrences that have a major impact on an
individual’s life
 Death of a parent, pregnancy in adolescence, fire, lottery, unexpected surprise
 Culture – The behavior patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a group that are passed on from
generation to generation
 Cross-cultural studies – Comparison of one culture with another culture. These provide
information about the degree to which development is similar, or universal, across cultures, and
the degree to which it is culture-specific
 Ethnicity – A characteristic based on cultural heritage, nationality characteristics, race, religion,
and language
 Socioeconomic status – Refers to the grouping of people with similar occupational, educational,
and economic characteristics
 Gender – the psychological and sociocultural dimensions of being male or female
 Social Policy – A national government’s course of action designed to promote the welfare of its
citizens
 REVIEW FAMILY POLICY PG 13-14
 Developmental procceses and periods
o Biological processes – Changes in an individuals physical nature
 genes from parents
 development of brain
 heigh and weight
 changes in motor skills
 puberty
 cardiovascular decline
o Cognitive Processes – Changes in an individual’s thought, intelligence, and language
 Watching a colorful mobile swinging above crib
 Putting together a 2-word sentence
 Memorizing poem
 Using imagination
 Solving crossword puzzle
o Socioemotional processes – Changes in an individual’s relationships with other people,
emotions, and personality
 Infants smile when mothers touch
 Young boy’s aggressive attack
 Young girl’s assertiveness
 Joy at the senior prom
o THESE ARE ALL INTERTWINED
 Periods of Development
o Prenatal period (conception to birth)
o Infancy (birth to 18-24 months)
o Early Childhood (2-5 years)
o Middle and Late Childhood (6-11 years)
o Adolescence (10/12-18/21 years)
o Early adulthood (20s-30s)
o Middle adulthood (35/45-60s)
o Late adulthood (60/70s-death)
o Read this section (pages 17-18)
 Happiness is the same within all ages
 Chronological age – the number of years that have elapsed since birth
 Biological age – A persons age in terms of biological health (vital capacities)
 Social age – Social roles and expectations related to a person’s age
o Role of a mother and age they are in
  Nature-Nurture issue – Refers to the debate about whether development is primarily influenced
by nature or nurture. Nature refers to an organism’s biological inheritance, Nurture to its
environmental settings. The “nature proponents” claim biological inheritance is the most
important influence on development; the “nurture proponents” claim that environmental
experiences are the most important
 Stability-change issue – Involves the degree to which we become older renditions of our early
experience (stability) or whether we develop into someone different from who we were at an
earlier point in development (change).
 Continuity-discontinuity issue – Focuses on the extent to which development involves gradual,
cumulative change (continuity) or distinct changes (discontinuity).
o Continuity – acorn to leaf to tree
o Discontinuity – caterpillar to butterfly

Chapter two

Psychoanalytical Theories

1. Unconscious (beyond awareness)

2. Colored by emotion
3. Early experiences with parents heavily shape development
4. Sigmund Frued
a. Frued’s Three Structures of Development
i. Id
1. Consists of instincts (reservoir of psychic energy)
2. No contact with reality
ii. Ego
1. Child experiences demands and constraints of reality
2. “executive branch” – uses reasoning to make decisions
iii. Superego
1. Moral branch
2. Right vs. Wrong (conscious)
iv. Defense mechanism resolves conflicts (ego)
b. Psychosexual Stages
i. Oral Stage (Birth to 1 ½ years)
1. Infants pleasure centers on the mouth
ii. Anal Stage (1 ½ to 3 years)
1. Child’s pleasure focuses on the anus
iii. Phallic Stage (3 to 6 years)
1. Child’s pleasure focuses on the genitals
iv. Latency Stage (6 years to Puberty)
1. Child represses sexual interest and develops social and intellectual skills
v. Genital Stage (Puberty Onward)
 1. A time of sexual reawakening; source of sexual pleasure becomes
someone outside the family
5. Erik Erikson
a. 8 Developmental Stages
i. Integrity vs. Despair (Late adulthood)
1. Reflection on the past
2. Integrity through a good life
3. Despair when one regrets something
ii. Generatively vs. Stagnation (Middle adulthood)
1. Helping the younger generation develop and lead useful lives
2. Stagnation when you haven’t done anything to help
iii. Intimacy vs. Isolation (Early adulthood)
1. Forming intimate relationships
2. Finding oneself yet losing oneself to another
iv. Identity vs. Identity Confusion (Adolescence)
1. Finding who you are
v. Industry vs. Inferiority (Middle and Late Childhood)
1. Mastering knowledge and intellectual skills
2. Child may feel incompetent and unproductive
vi. Initiative vs. Guilt (Early Childhood)
1. Responsibility with body, toys, actions come into play
vii. Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (Infancy 1-3 years)
1. Asserting their sense on independence
2. Restrained too much/punished too harshly
viii. Trust vs. Mistrust (Infancy first year)
1. Sets the stage
6. Cognitive theories
7. Paigets 4 Stages
a. Sensiromotor Stage
i. The infant constructs an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory
experiences with physical actions. An infant progresses from reflective
instinctual action at birth to the beginning of symbolic thought toward the end
of the stage
1. Seeing and hearing
b. Preoperational Stage
i. The child begins to represent the world with words and images. These words
and images reflect increased symbolic thinking and go beyond the connection of
sensory information and physical action
c. Concrete Operational Stage
i. The child can now reason logically about concrete events and classify objects
into different sets
d. Formal Operational Stage
 i. The adolescent reasons in more abstract, idealistic, and logical ways
e. Organization and Adaptation
f. Child’s cognition is qualitatively different in one stage against another
8. Vygotskys Theory
a. Sociocultural Theory
b. Development of memory, attention, and reasoning involves learning to use the
inventions of society such as language systems and strategies.
c. Knowledge is situated and collaborative
9. Information Processing Theory
a. Individuals manipulate information, monitor it, strategize it

Evolutionary Perspective
Natural Selection and Adaptive Behavior

Natural Selection – the evolutionary process by which those individuals of a species that are best
adapted are the ones that survives and reproduces.

 Charles Darwin
o Most organisms reproduce at rates that would cause enormous increases in the
population of most species and yet populations remain nearly constant.
o The ones that survive pass on their characteristics to next generation
o Survivors are better adapted

Adaptive Behavior – behavior that promotes an organism’s survival in the natural habitat

Example: Attachment between a caregiver and a baby (protects them from danger)

Evolutionary Psychology

Evolutionary Psychology – emphasizes the importance of adaptation, reproduction, and “survival of the
fittest” in shaping behavior.

 David Buss
o As evolution shapes our physical features, such as body shape and height, it also
pervasively influences how we make decisions, how aggressive we are, out fears, and
out mating patterns.

Evolutionary Developmental Psychology

 An extended juvenile period evolved because humans require time to develop a large brain and
learn the complexity of human social communities
o Humans take longer to become reproductively mature than any other mammal
  Many aspects of childhood function as preparations for adulthood and were selected over the
course of evolution
o Boys rough house which leads to better instincts for hunting; girls play with dolls which
helps prepare them for childcare
 Some characteristics of childhood were selected because they are adaptive at specific points in
development, not because they prepare children for adulthood
o Play helps children adapt to their immediate circumstances
 Many evolved psychological mechanisms are domain-specific
o Information-processing
o In Lorenz’s experiment the goslings were “prepared” to follow their mother, human
infants are biologically prepared to learn the sounds that are part of human language
 Evolved mechanisms are not always adaptive in contemporary society
o Ancestors had to gorge when food was in presence because of scarcity but now food is
plentiful so we do not need to eat as much so fast

Evolution of Life-Span Development

 Paul Baltes
o The benefits conferred by evolutionary selection decrease with age
o Natural selection operates primarily on characteristics that are tied to reproductive
fitness, which extends though the earlier part of adulthood.
o Selection primarily operates during the first half of life

Evaluating Evolutionary Psychology

Bidirectional view – in which environmental and biological conditions influence each other.

 Evolution gives us bodily structures and biological potentialities

 Does not dictate behavior
 People use biological capacities to produce diverse cultures
 Steven Jay Gould
o In most domains of human functioning, biology allows a broad range of cultural
possibilities

Genetic Foundations of Development

 We each carry a “genetic code” that we have from our parents

The Collaborative Gene

Chromosomes – threadlike structures made up of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) found in the nucleus

DNA – a complex molecule that has a double helix shape, like a spiral staircase, and contains genetic
information
Genes – the units of hereditary information, short segments of DNA. They direct cells to reproduce
themselves and to assemble proteins

 Humans are found to have around 20,000 to 25,000 genes

 Humans have more proteins than genes
 David Moore
o Genes do not act independently

Genome – the complete set of developmental instructions for creating proteins that initiate the making
of a human organism

 Activity of genes is affected by their environment

 Human genome exists of many genes that collaborate both with each other and with non-
genetic factors inside and outside the body

Genes and Chromosomes

Mitosis, Meiosis, and Fertilization

Mitosis – When the cell’s nucleus-including the chromosomes-duplicates itself and the cell divides
creating two new cells that contain the same DNA

Meiosis – forms eggs and sperm; a cell of the testes or ovaries duplicates its chromosomes but then
divides twice, thus forming dour cells.

Fertilization – an egg and a sperm fuse to create a single cell called a zygote

Zygote – the 23 unpaired chromosomes from the sperm combine to form one set of 23 paired
chromosomes-one chromosome of each pair from the mother’s egg and the other from the father’s
sperm. Each parent contributes half of the genetic material

 Women have two X-chromosomes

 Men have an X and a Y chromosome

Sources of Variability

Genotype – All of a person’s genetic material

Phenotype – consists of all of a person’s observable characteristics

Genetic Principles

Dominant-Recessive Genes Principle

Dominant genes override the potential influence of the other gene called the recessive gene

Sex-Linked Genes
X-linked inheritance – The result of when a mutant gene is carried on the X-chromosome

 X-linked disease is when one X-chromosome on a woman contains it and a male is not capable
of contributing a gene that will cancel it out

Genetic Imprinting – occurs when genes have differing effects depending on whether they are inherited
from the mother of father

Polygenic Imprinting – When characteristics are determined by multiple gene pairs

Chromosome and Gene-Linked Abnormalities

Down Syndrome

 A person has a round face, flattened skull, extra fold of skin over the eyelids, a protruding
tongue, short limbs, and retardation of motor and mental abilities
 Occurs in one of every 700 births
 Mainly occurs with mothers younger than 16 and older than 34

Sex-Linked Chromosome Abnormalities

 Most common abnormalities involve the presence of an extra chromosome or the absence of an
X-chromosome in females
 Klinefelter Syndrome - in which males have an extra X-chromosome which causes undeveloped
testes, have enlarged breasrs and become tall
o Occurs in one of every 600 male births
 Fragile X Syndrome – results from an abnormality in the X chromosome which becomes
constricteds and often breaks.
o Mental deficiency is an outcome, learning disability, attention disorder, mental
retardation
o More common in males than females
 Turner Syndrome – disorder in females in which X chromosome is missing
o Woman are short in structure and have a webbed neck
o Might be infertile
o Difficulty in mathematics
o One in every 2,500 woman births
 XXY Syndrome – when the male has an extra Y chromosome
o Contributes to aggression and violence

Gene Linked Abnormalities

 Phenylketonuria (PKU) – when an individual cannot properaly metabolize phenylalanine (an

amino acid)
o Occurs in one of every 10,000-20,000 live births
 o Treated like a diet
 Sickle-cell Anemia
o Occurs in African decendent
o Impairs bodies red blood cells
 Other diseases are cystic fibrosis, diabities, hemophilia, Huntingtons disease, spina bifida, Tay-
Sacks disease

Parental Diagnostic Tests

Ultrasound sonography- a prenatal medical procedure in which high-frequency sound waves are
directed into the pregnant woman’s abdomen

Chronic villi sampling – a prenatal medical procedure in which a small sample of the placenta is removed

Amniocentesis – a prenatal procedure in which a sample of amniotic fluid is withdrawn by syringe and
tested for chromosome or metabolic disorders

Maternal blood screening – identifies pregnancies that have an elevated risk for birth defects

Infertility and Reproductive Technology

 Invitro Fertilization – Eggs and sperm are combined in a laboratory dish. If any eggs are
successfully fertilizes, one or more of the resulting fertilized eggs are transformed into the
woman’s uterus
 Gamete intrafallopian transfer – A doctor inserts eggs and sperm directly into a woman’s
fallopian tube
 Zygote intrafallopian transfer – This is a two-step procedure, First, eggs are fertilized in the
laboratory; then, any resulting fertilized eggs are transferred to a fallopian tube

Adoption

 Easier for an adoption to be done in early stages of life than later

 When older, more likely to experience psychological and school-related problems
 More prone to be involved
 When a child is adopted rather than in their institution they are proven to have higher IQs and
perform better academically

Behavior Genetics

Behavior Genetics – the field that seeks to discover the influence of heredity and environment on
individual differences in human traits and development

Twin Study – the behavioral similarity of identical twins is compared with fraternal twins

 Identical twins are more genetically similar than fraternal because fraternal don’t share the
same egg yet identical do
Adoption Study – whether the behavior and psycholofical characteristivs of adopted children are more
like those of their adoptive parents. Another form studies differences between adoptive and biological
siblings

Heredity-Enviroment Correlations

 Passice genotype-enviroment correlations occur because biological parents provide a rearing

environment for the child
 Evocatice genotype-enviroment correlations occur when a child’s characteristics elicit certain
types of environments
 Active (niche-picking) genotype-environment correlations occur when children seek out
environments that they find compatible and stimulating

Shared and Nonshared Environmental Experiences

Shared environmental experiences – are siblings’ common experiences, such as parent’s personalities or
intellectual orientation

Nonshared environmental experiences – a child’s unique experiences with and outside family

Nature Assumption – Judith Harris argues that what parents do does not make a difference in a youth’s
behavior

The Epigenetic View – development is the result of an ongoing, bidirectional interchange between
heredity and the environment