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80 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Explain what is meant by the following contrasts: nature vs. nurture, continuity vs. discontinuity, vulnerability vs. resilience. |
Nature vs. Nurture- how much of who we are, how we behave, etc. is due to biological factors (genes) or environmental factors (childhood upbringing)
Continuity vs. Discontinuity- how much do we stay the same vs. how much do we change? Vulnerability vs. Resilience- Vulnerability= at least risk 4 factors for developmental problems vs. Resilience= capacity to deal and cope with stress (not develop problems) |
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Why is the nature/nurture contrast a false dichotomy?
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The nature/nurture contrast is a false dichotomy because who we are/how we behave is really an interaction of our biology and our environment.
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What 3 characteristics distinguish developmental changes from other types of change?
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Not reversible- once you advance to the next developmental stage, you don’t go back. Example- once you learn how to walk you don’t regress to crawling. (there are exceptions in the cases of severe trauma or brain damage).
Relatively stable- stages last for long periods of time. Occur in sequence- example: crying->babbling->gestures->words |
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How do prospective studies of risk factors in development overcome some of the weaknesses of retrospective studies of risk factors?
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The prospective studies followed the entire sample of babies with risk factors to find out whether or not they developed problems. The retrospective studies only focused on the people with problems and backtracked to find that there were risk factors- they did not take into account all the babies with risk factors who did not develop problems.
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Discuss the resilience of some of the children in the Werner (1989) study.
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It was a prospective study that looked at pari-natal stress as a risk factor for developmental problems. They followed babies (whose mothers were experiencing stress around the time of their birth) for 30 years. They found that about 2/3 of those babies later developed serious problems, but there were 1/3 who were resilient.
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What does this study tell us about the likelihood that traumatic events early in life will have devastating effects on later development?
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They found that the protective factors for the resilient individuals were (1) being raised in good homes (middle class with healthy parents) and having a close relationship with at least one adult and (2) their own temperament (ex- adults want to care for a cuddly baby more than a fussy baby).
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Describe Scarr's notion of "good enough parenting".
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The idea that biological factors have more of an effect on how someone turns out than how they are raised. It is important that parents love their kids and provide for their basic needs, but you’re not going to destroy your kids future by not being the “perfect” parent-- just as long as you are a “good enough” parent.
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List and describe three ways in which a child's genes can influence his/her experiences.
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Passive-parents usually provide both genes and environment (ex. Parents who like to read). Evocative- child’s genetic make-up evokes different responses from others (ex. Baby who smiles will get others to smile back). Active- child’s genetic make-up leads him/her to choose different environments (ex. A tall kid choosing to play basketball)--- this one assumes that everyone has a choice
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Give an example of how some cross-cultural differences in parent-child interactions may relate to differences in parents' beliefs about who is primarily responsible for the child’s learning.
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Mothers from non-western areas gave the child the toy and had them figure it out while western mothers showed the child how to use the toy. In the non-western family, the child was responsible for its own learning but in western areas the parents took on the responsibly to teach the child.
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Morelli et al. (1992) studied variations in sleeping arrangements in two communities. How do the parents explain their decisions on where their children should sleep? In which society did more children tend to use attachment objects (transition objects) and bedtime rituals to help them fall asleep?
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In western societies, people tend to leave their children in their own room and give them security objects where as in other cultures the babies co-sleep, which means they sleep with the parents in the same bed. In other cultures the whole family sleeps in the same room.
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What were some of the reasons that American parents used in justifying their decision to keep children in a separate room/bed?
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training and self reliance to sleep apart and to reduce their babies’ dependence on them. Also, U.S. families are worried that they might roll over onto their children or that they might be exposed to inappropriate sexual acts.
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What is epigenetics?
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the study of changes in gene activity that do not involve changes to the genetic code.
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Give an example of how experience can affect gene expression.
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diet and stress can affect gene expression (pregnant rats –normal diet turned obese and blonde, special diet did not get obese and stayed dark)
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What do transactional models of development posit?
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Transactional model posit that genes and environment influence each other, one is not more important than the other.
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List several factors that may play a role in the relationship between siblings.
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Age gap- less age gap, more conflict, Gender, Temperament, Relationship w/ parents- conflict can be caused if parents are warmer to one
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Describe with an example what it means to say that siblings experience different “micro-environments” within the family.
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Even though they may have the same parents, no one child is treated exactly like their sibling. For example a difficult child may be punished more frequently/severely than their sibling who is more easy-going.
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Explain, with an example, why one cannot infer a causal relationship when 2 variables are correlated.
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Because (1) you cannot determine which variable affected the other. For example if there is a positive correlation with one’s happiness and their income, you don’t know whether their happiness has a positive effect on the amount of money they make or if the more money they make causes them to be happy. And (2) there may be a confounding variable.
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Explain the logic of the habituation technique with an example.
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When a baby is presented with an unfamiliar stimulus, they have behavioral and physiological responses (ex. time spent looking, increased heart rate). The more the stimulus is presented, the more familiar it becomes, so the baby’s response decreases. If the baby detects a new stimulus, he/she will dishabituate.
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What can we conclude when the infant dishabituates?
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We can conclude that when an infant dishabituates they can discriminate between two different stimuli.
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Describe the longitudinal research design for measuring developmental change (and list its advantages and disadvantages.
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Repeated measures of the same participant overtime, within-subject, look at issues of continuity. Advantage: can study stability and change in individual overtime. Disadvantage: attrition (loss participants overtime). If attrition is systematic, it can lead to a bias sample in the end; have to wait for infants to get older; possibility of order effect, i.e. practice effect, not reflecting development.
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Describe the Cross-sectional research design for measuring developmental change (and list its advantages and disadvantages.
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a between subject design, examining different age group at the same time. Advantage: lose fewer participants and don’t have to wait for them to grow up, no order effect. Disadvantage: can’t look at stability of individual differences; cohort effect, something other than age that is systematically different between the two age group, a confound.
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What is the cohort effect?
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When there is something systematically different between age groups other than age (confound)
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What two types of studies do developmental behavioral geneticists conduct?
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Twin Studies and adoptive studies
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Describe some of the special challenges involved in doing research with infants.
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non verbal. poor motor control. frequent state changes
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What is the difference between experimental and observational methods of research?
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Experimal studies involve manipulating and controlling of variables as well as random assignment. Observation studies involve studying naturally occuring variations.
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What is the main advantage of experimental studies?
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The main advantage of experimental studies is that they can show cause.
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What is the main advantage of observational studies?
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The main advantage of observational studies are that they are easier to conduct and occur naturally?
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How did Tincoff and Jusczyk (1999) demonstrate word comprehension in 6-month-old infants? (Be specific: describe the findings in terms of the dependent measure.) How did they demonstrate that their finding was not due to the infants’ associating the word mommy with all adult females and the word daddy with all adult males?
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The infants were sat on someones lap facing two videos. One was of the infant’s mother and one was of the infant’s father. A voice came out of a speaker that was placed in between the videos that said either “mommy” or “daddy”. The infants would look at their mother when the word “mommy” was presented and would look at their father when the word “daddy” was presented. To show that the infants didn’t associate “mommy” and “daddy” they put infants through the same experiment but the infants were not shown videos of their own parent. The infants didn’t look significantly longer at either the female or the male while the words were presented. This showed that the infants associate “mommy” with their own mother and “daddy” with their own father.
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What are the two behaviors young infants have the most control over?
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Looking and sucking.
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Give some examples of how these behaviors have been used in empirical research of infants’ capabilities.
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Sucking - baby slowing down sucking to hear mother’s voice shows they are listening. Looking - baby looking at a picture of either a face making “aa” sound or face making “ee” sound.
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What is “converging evidence”?
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When there are multiple sources pointing to one thing, so it makes the claim stronger and more true.
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What makes scientific research on babies different from the knowledge people gain from their own interactions with babies?
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Scientific research is: replicable, uses objective measures (not biased) and comes from multiple sources, lots of data (aka converging evidence)
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List the 3 stages of prenatal development.
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Zygote/germinal. Embryo. Fetus
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What are the major developmental change that occurs in the Zygote/germinal stage?
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Time: conception to 2 weeks. Important development: cell division and implantation
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What are the major developmental change that occurs in the Embryo stage?
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Time: 2 weeks-8 weeks. Important development: organogenesis- development of organs. Organism is at the most risk of problems
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What are the major developmental change that occurs in the Fetus stage?
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Time: 8 weeks-birth. Important development: responds to stimulation
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Discuss the evidence for negative effects on development of the fetus as a result of maternal stress, malnutrition, nicotine, alcohol and other influences.
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Malnutrition: devastating for fetus. Stress: associated with cortisol, can restrict blood flow, more anxiety, poor attention in school. At different stages there is a higher risk of prematurity and lower birth weight. Disease: Devastating, heart defects, mental retardation etc. Drugs: Nicotine- birth defects, sudden infant death syndrome, oxygen restriction) Alcohol- fetal alcohol syndrome, interferes with brain development, the earlier the worse it is. timing is critical with all drugs.
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Discuss the problems in interpreting correlations between prenatal risk factors (e.g., stress) and developmental problems in the baby.
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The main issue with interpreting correlations between prenatal risk factors and developmental problems in the baby is you don’t know what actually caused it. Correlation does not imply causation.
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What is the “fetal origins hypothesis”? What kinds of developments have been liked to prenatal experiences?
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Fetal activity and behavior plays an important role in neurological and muscular development. Is that it?
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Why is fetal activity/behavior important?
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Fetal activity and behavior plays an important role in neurological and muscular development. Is that it?
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What are “teratogenic effects”?
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Teratogens are environmental toxins that can have long lasting and often irreversible effects on development.
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Why does the timing of exposure to teratogens matter?
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The exposure to teratogens determines what part of development is affected and how badly it is affected. (expand on this)
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Describe DeCasper and Spence's landmark study demonstrating that newborns can "remember"/recognize auditory events they were exposed to in utero.
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They had 16 mothers recite nursery rhymes to their unborn baby twice a day for last 6 weeks of pregnancy. When the babies were 2 days old they tested their response to those nursery rhymes that they were exposed to in utero (target rhymes) compared to novel nursery rhymes (control rhymes). They found that the babies recognized and preferred the rhymes they heard in utero. ( dependant variable= sucking more AND less)
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How did DeCasper et al. (1994) extend the previous findings on fetal learning? What was their main dependent measure?
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DeCasper et al (1994) extended previous findings that fetuses could hear things in utero. And recognize them after birth. This time they tested the fetuses before they were born to see if they recognized/ preferred control or target rhymes. Their main dependent measure was heart rate deceleration as a measure of attentiveness. Control rhymes had no effect on heart rate, familiar rhymes elicited a significant decrease in heart-rate. Conclusion: 3rd trimester fetuses become familiar with recurrent maternal speech.
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What were Auyeung et al.’s (2009) main findings regarding the effects of prenatal exposure to testosterone?
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The main findings of Auyeung et al.’s 2009 study were that they found “a significant relationship between fetal testosterone and sexually differentiated play behavior in both males and females”. Less testosterone -à less manly.
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What are the three stages of labor?
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Dilation of cervix: Widening and thinning to nothing. Contractions cause this, they get stronger and closer together in time. Delivering of infant: Epidurals can be used here to numb pain, doesn’t affect the fetus. Delivery of Placenta: more contractions in this stage.
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What is the most common birth position for the laboring mother in most of the world’s societies?
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Upright torso is most common in most of world’s societies. (In western culture it’s lying down on back because it makes it easier for the doctors when delivering babies.)
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What is the Apgar score? What does it tell us about the health of a newborn?
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Score out of 10 (2 pts for each category), check if baby developed correctly. Appearance (color), Pulse (heartrate), Grimace (when foot in poked), Activity (muscle tone), Respiration
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List and describe 5 reflexes that have clear survival value .
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sucking (help learning to nurse), crying (reflex, later becomes intentional to get attention), rooting (touch cheek, or near mouth, infants will turn their heads and open their mouths), swallowing (take in nutrients), breathing (to obtain oxygen)
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List and describe 5 reflexes that have unknown functions.
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moro: when startled, their arms and legs will spread out and back together. swimming: put babies upside down in water and they will move their arms and legs, that looks like “swimming”. grasping: if anything touches the palm of their hand, they will close their hand around it. Babinski: if you stroke the sole of their feet, the toes would spread out. stepping: if you hold a baby and support its weight, it’ll start “walking” with your support
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Describe several forms of stimulation used in neonatal units in the U.S. (Field et al., 2006)
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Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) at U.S. hospitals use (1) skin-to-skin following birth in the delivery room (83% of hospitals); (2) containment (swaddling and surrounded by blanket rolls) in the NICU (86%); (3) music in the NICU (72%); (4) rocking in the NICU (85%); (5) kangaroo care (98%); (6) non-nutritive sucking during tubefeedings in the NICU (96%); (7) breastfeeding in the NICU (100%).
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Describe Meltzoff and Moore's studies of neonatal imitation - why were their results so surprising?
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12 infants ages 16-21 days old were shown mouth openings (MO) and tongue protrusions (TP) in counterbalanced order. Blind observer coded the videotapes for infants production for these two behaviors. * The infants WERE imitating what they were seeing. infants were imitating something that they cannot see themselves do, but can feel their bodies imitating these actions of either TP or MO
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What are some ways to soothe a crying infant?
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lift to shoulder and rock/walk, swaddle (wrap up tightly), pacifier (non-nutritive sucking), rhythmic sounds, cradle/car ride (gentle motion), massage
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What were the main findings of Field et al. (2009)? Is this an observational or an experimental study?
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This study found that prenatal massage lowers cortisol levels and can prevent low birth weight in infants. It also lowers cortisol levels in mothers. It was an experimental study.
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What were Chen et al.’s (2004) main findings?
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“The results of the study show that newborns can perform an important precursor behavior to vocal imitation under certain laboratory conditions. The newborns produced significantly more mouth openings to /a/ condition than to /m/ condition and more mouth clutching to /m/ condition than to /a/ condition. That is, newborn infants showed the corresponding mouth movements to both vowel and consonant vocal models.”
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Do newborns prefer human speech over monkey vocalizations? (Vouloumanos et al., 2010)
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This article concludes that newborns prefer both human speech and monkey vocalizations until three months when then they prefer human speech. Is this right?
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What combination do Blass and Watt (1999) recommend for helping newborns deal with pain? What do Kostandy et al. (2008) recommend?
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Blass and Watt suggest sucrose-covered pacifiers while Kostandy et al. recommend kangaroo care.
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"Deprivation" and "enrichment" studies with animals show very specific effects of experience on brain development. What are some of these effects and what do they illustrate about the nature of normal brain development?
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“Deprivation” refers to little stimulation, and “enrichment” refers to plentiful stimulation. The studies this question refers to compared animals raised in stimulating and unstimulating environments. Those that received more stimulation formed more neural connections in their brains.
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What are neurons?
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nerve cells
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What are dendrites?
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branched extensions of neurons
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What are synapses?
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connections between neurons
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what do glail cells do?
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help messages move more smoothly between neurons- also brain grow?
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What is myelinization?
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The process of forming myelin which insulates neural fiber; speeds up the transmission of messages between neurons
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List and describe the 4 stages of neural development.
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Cell Production: make way cells more than you need. Cell migration: cell travel to the right place, teratogens affect them by not going to right place. Cell Elaboration: forming of the synapses, more development of connections b/w different cells. Cell Death: pruning, overproduce synapses and let some of them die off.
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What is “plasticity”?
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brain can reorganize, rapid growth so better recovery/development
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what is a hemispherectomy?
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A surgical procedure involving removal of one of the cerebral hemispheres
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Describe the Kennard principle about the early plasticity of the brain.
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Kennard Principles: the earlier the brain damage, the less severe the behavioral effects are but depends on age, gender, size of damage
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discuss how the Kennard principle has been qualified by studies with rats.
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rats swim fairly welll. put rat in tank with milky water. measure how long it takes rat to find/reach the platform. adults rat are good at this. perform hemispherectomy on adult rats and then make them do the same task again. They do terribly after the lesion. Researchers then perfom hemispherectomy on baby rats, wait till they grow up, then do task. Rats that were lesioned when young, now adults can perform the task well. if lesion on cortex(young rats with lesion perform good) if it’s a bilateral lesion(young rats with lesion will perform poorly)
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Distinguish between the effects of radiation and alcohol on the developing fetal brain.
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alcohol make cells go past their targets and radiations makes them go short of their target
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Describe how functional (behavioral) changes and structural changes in the brain are reciprocal.
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development (structural changes) in the brain provide the opportunity for infants to have new experiences. and the experiences help to set the stage for new developments.
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In what two cognitive areas do Hackman and Farah (2008) find reliable SES differences?
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Two cognitive areas are language development and executive functions.
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Do they argue the brain differences are innate and immutable?
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they argue that brain differences are not innate and immutable because there is not enough evidence to prove this.
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What do young babies like to look at?
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Patterns: especially symmetrical and complex patterns. Faces: real and schematic
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What is meant by cross-modal perception?
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Cross-modal perception is matching across perception modalities
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Describe the Vision and hearing study by Kuhl & Meltzoff illustrating cross-modal perception in infants.
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32 infants(18-20weeks old). shown two faces side by side making “AA” sound and “EE” sound. presented one of those sounds through a speaker in the middle of the 2 faces. will they match what they are hearing to what they are seeing. infants looked longer at the matching face than the mismatching face. study saying it could be innate
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Describe the Vision and touch study by Meltzoff & Boyon illustrating cross-modal perception in infants.
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32 infants (29days old). 2 pacifiers with different texture(rough vs. smooth), didn't let infant see them, while putting it or taking it out. Only get to feel it in their mouths. show at the two pics of the pacifiers simultaneously; visually present the pacifiers and measured the babies’ looking time of each picture. result: babies looked longer at the matching pacifier(one they previously sucked on)
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What is the perceptual narrowing hypothesis? How does it explain the other-race effect? (Kelly et al. 2009)
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As babies get older, they become better able to distinguish between stimuli they are familiar with and less able to distinguish between stimuli they are unfamiliar with. For instance, they become better able to distinguish between sounds in their native language and less able to distinguish between sounds of a foreign language. The other-race effect refers to the fact that as they get older, babies become less able to distinguish between faces from races other than their own. This is an example of perceptual narrowing because babies tend to see people of their own race more often than people of other races. Thus, faces from their own race are more familiar to them.
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How did Adolph (2000) show that learning to reach is posture-specific?
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By having babies reach over gaps, but the babies still reached over the gap even if it proved not safe in other positions. They had to re-learn every time they were placed in a new posture. For example, if the baby fell in the gap siting down, it did not remember that when placed in the crawling position.
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Distinguish between gross motor development and fine motor development. Which comes first?
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Gross motor development refers to the development of large muscles such as arms and legs. It comes before fine motor development which refers to small muscles like the tongue and fingers.
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Distinguish between the ulnar grasp and the pincer grasp.
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Ulnar grasp uses the whole hand in an open/close motion. Pincer grasp involves the index finger and thumb in a pinching motion which is much more refined and enables the infant to pick up smaller objects.
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