Psychology Chapter 10

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false assumption that because one event occurred before another event, it must have caused that event

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post hoc fallacy

Hint 1

post hoc = Latin for "after this"

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Human development is almost always a two-way street: developmental influences are bidirectional.

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bidirectional influences

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research design that examines people of different ages at a single point of time. the problem: they do not control for cohort effects

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cross-sectional design

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effect observed in a sample of participants that results from individuals in the sample growing up at the same time

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cohort effects

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research design that examines development in the same group of people on multiple occassions over time. problem: attrition - participants dropping out of the study before it is complete

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longitudinal design

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situation in which the effects of the genes depend on the environment in which they are expressed

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gene-environment interaction

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tendency of individuals with certain genetic predispositions to seek out and create environments that permit the expression of thos predespositions

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Nature via Nurture

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Activation or deactivation of genes by environmental experiences throughout development.

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Gene expression

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prior to birth

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prenatal

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fertilized egg

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zygote

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balls of identical cells early in pregnancy that haven't yet begun to take on any specific function in a body part

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blastocyst

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second to eight week of prenatal development, during which limbs, facial features, and major organs of the body take form

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embryo

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period of prenetal devlopment from ninth week until birth after all major organs are established and physical maturation is the primary change

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fetus

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Between the 18th day of pregnancy and the end of the sixth month, neurons begin developing at an astronomical rate

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proliferation

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1) Exposure to hazardous environmental influences: teratogens. 2) Biological influences resulting from genetic disorders or errors in cell duplicating during cell divisions. 3) Premature birth

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Fetal development can be disrupted in three ways

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Environmental factor that can exert a negative impact on prenatal development

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Teratogens

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Condition resulting from high levels of prenatal alcohol exposure, causing learning disabilities, physical growht retardation, facial malformations, and behavioral disorders

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Fetal alcohol syndrom

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Born at fewer than 36 weeks: preemies. The viability point - the point in preganncy at which infants can typically survive on their own, is 25 weeks.

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Premature birth

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Bodily motion that occurs as result of self-initiated force that moves the bones and muscles

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Motor behaviour

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transition between childhood and adulthood commonly associated with the teenage years

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adolescence

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the achievement of sexual maturation resulting in the potential to reproduce

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puberty

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physical feature such as the reproductive organs and genitals that distinguish the sexes

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primary sex characeteristics

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sex-differentiating characteristic that does not relate directly to reproduction, such as breast enlargement in women and deepening voices in men

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secondary sex characteristics

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start of mestruation

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menarche

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boys' first ejaculation

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spermarche

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study of how children acquire the ability to learn, think, reason, communicate and remember

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cognitive development

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1) Some propose stagelike changes in understanding; other more continious changes in understanding.
2) Some adopt a domain-general account of development, others a domain-specific account
3) They differ in their views of the main source of learning: some models emphasize physical experience, others social interaction, and others biological maturation.

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Cognitive developmental theories differ in 3 core ways:

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1) Stage theorist
2) Domain-general.
He proposed that cognitive change is the result of children's need to achieve equilibration: maintaining a balance between their experience of the world and their understanding of it. This is done through (1) assimilation and (2) accomodation.

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Jean Piagets view on development

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Piagetian process of absorbing new experiences into current knowledge strucutres

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assimilation

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Piagetian process of altering a belief to make it more compatible with experience

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accomodation

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Child wants to maintain a balance between experience of the world and their understanding of it

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Equilibration

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1) Sensorimotor stage
2) Preoperational
3) Concrete operational
4) Formal operational

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Piaget's Stages of Development

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stage in Piaget's theory characterized by a focus on the here and now without the ability to represent experiences mentally. In this stage, children lack object permanence and deferred imitation.

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sensorimotor stage

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the understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of view; out of sight, out of mind.

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object permanence

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stage in Piaget's theory charaterized by the ability to construct mental representations of experience but not yet perform operations on them. In this stage, children are hampered by egocentrism. It is called preoperational because of the inability to perform mental operations.

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preoperational stage

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inability to see the world from other's perspective

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egocentrism

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Piaget's task requiring children to understand that despite a transofmration in the physical presentation of an amount, the amount remains the same

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conservation

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Stage in Piaget's theory characterized by the ability to perform mental operations on physical events only

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Concrete operational stage

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stage in Piaget's theory characterized by the ability to perform hypothetical reasoning beyond the here and now

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Formal operations stage

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1) Much of development is more cintinuous than stagelike
2) Some phenomena Piaget observed appeared to be at least partly a product of task demands/language.

3) Cultural biased

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Problems with Piaget's 4 stages of development theory

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1. VIewing children as different in kind rather than degree from adults: children are not miniature adults

2. Characterizing learning as an active, rather than a passive process.

3. Exploring general cognitive processes that may cut across multiple domains of knowledge, thereby accounting for cognitive development in terms of fewer - and more parsimonious - underlying processes.

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What we learned from Piaget's theory

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Vygotskian learning mechanism in which parents provide initial assistance in children's learning but gradually remove structure as children become more competent. - Like extra wheels on a bicycle

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scaffolding

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phase of learning during which children can benefit from instruction

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zone of proximal development

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1) General Cognitive Accounts

2) Sociocultural accounts

3) Modular Accounts

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contemporary theories of cognitive development