Mors 200 Arts Final - Chapter 9 Discovering Psychology Notes Part 1

Unique combination of genes inherited from biological mother and father

The historical era during which you grew up

Cultural contexts

Social contexts

Family contexts within which you were raised

The study of how people change psysiologically, cognitively, and socially throughout the lifespan.

Biological

Environmental

Social

Cultural

Behavioral

Attitudes

Perceptions

Personality Characteristics

Longitudinal Design

Cross-Sectional Design

Tracks a particular variable or group of variables in the same group of participants over time, sometimes for years.

Studies a variable or group of variables among a group of participants at different ages or developmental stages.

Traditionally defined by age, which implies that we experience relatively sudden, age-related changes as we move from one stage to the next.

Most of our physical, cognitive and social changes occur gradually

Can be abrupt

Can be closely tied to critical periods

Periods during which a child is maximally sensitive to environmental influences.

Although we are born with a specific genetic potential that we inherit from our biological parents, our environment influences how, when, and whether that potential is expressed. Our genetic inheritance influences the ways in which we experience and interact with the environment.

Zygote

Chromosomes

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)

Genes

Genotype

Phenotype

Epigenetics

A single cell packed with genetic instructions that you inherited from your biological parents.

Found in the cell nucleus, contains the genetic data inherited from biological parents. Each of these is a long, thread-like stucture composed of twisted parallel strands of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).

Stores the inherited information that guides the development of all living organisms.

DNA segments stung up like beads along the length of a chromosome. A unit of DNA code for making a particular protein molecule.

Make up less than 2% of human DNA

Direct the manufacture of proteins

Don’t directly control development, traits, or behaviors

The genetic makeup of an individual organism.

Every cell of your body contains a complete copy of this (excluding reprodiction cells)

Represented by each set of 23 chromosome pairs

contains only about 20,000 to 25,000 protein-coding genes

Used to commonly be described as a “genetic blueprint” (not accurate)

alleles

Different versions of genes.

i.e.- freckles is a result of dominant genes vs. recessive genes

Most characteristics are a result of multiple genes

The observable traits or characteristics of an organism as determined by the interaction of genetics and environmental factors.

Environmental factors influence these- i.e.- freckles may be inherited but require sun to actually be seen.

Different genotypes react differently to environmental factors- i.e.- some people are more sensitive to UV rays and sunburn easily

The study of the cellular mechanisms that control gene expression and of the ways that gene espression impacts health and behavior.

Dramatic differences among size, shape, and function of cells are due to which genes are expressed or activated to participate in protein production.

Gene expression can be triggered by the activity of other genes, internal chemical changes, or by external environmental factors

Genes can mutate from one generation to the next

Conception to birth

Birth to 2 years

2 to 6 years

6 to 12 years

12 to 18 years

18 to 25 years

25 to 40 years

40 to 65 years

65 years to death

The stage of development before birth. Divided into three distinct phases:

Germinal period

Embryonic period

Fetal Period

Represents the first two weeks of prenatal development.

Zygote undergoes rapid cell division before becoming implanted on the wall of the mother's uterus.

Some of the zygote's cells will eventually form the structures that house and protect the developing fetus and provide nourishment from the mother.

At the end of this period, the single-cell zygote has developed into a cluster of cells called the embryo.

Begins with week 3 and extends through week 8.

Rapid growth and cell differentation- organs and major systems of the body form

Genes on the sex chromosomes and hormonal influences tigger initial development of the sex organs.

Housed in fluid-filled embryonic sac- lifeline is the umbilical cord which provides nourishment, oxygen and water and carries away wastes and carbon dioxide

Primitive neural cells form

At the end of this stage, the embryo has grown from a cluster of a few hundred cells no bigger than the head of a pin to over an inch in length. (weighs about an ounce) Looks distinctly human though the head accounts for half its body size.

A disk-shaped, vascuar organ that prevents the mother's blood from directly mingling with that of hte developing embryo.

Acts as a filter for harmful agents in the mother's blood

Cannot filter out all harmful agents (teratogens)

Harmful agents or substances that can cause malformations or defects in the embryo or fetus.

Greatest vulnerability occurs during the embryonic stage

Cocaine

Prescription and over-the-counter drugs

Cigarette smoke

Alcohol

Exposure to radiation

Toxic chemicals and metals, such as mercury, PCBs and lead

Viruses and bacteria, such as German Measles (rubella), syphilis, genital herpes, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)

Perscription painkillers and other prescription and nonprescription drugs

Addictive drugs, including heroine, sedatives, cocaine, amphetamines, and methamphetamine

Maternal smoking and exposure to secondhard smoke

Alcohol

Mother's psychological state

Characterized by physical and mental problems. Symptoms include:

Abnormal facial features

Poor coordination

Learning disabilities

Behavior problems

Intellectual disability

Note: there is no safe level of drinking alcohol during pregnancy

Neural tube

Stem cells

Ventricles

Neurons

A sheet of primitive neural cells that developed around week 3 curls to form this during the prenatal stage.

at 4 weeks, this is the size of a grain of salt

at 7 weeks, this is about a quarter-inch long

Top of this tickens into three bulges that eventually form the three main regions of hte brain (hindbrain, midbrain and forebrain)

Undifferentiated cells that can divide and give rise to cells that can develop into any one o the body's different cell types.

divide indefinitely, renew, give rise to other types of cells

Line the neural tube

Found at the core of the fully developed brain. Develops from the neural tube expanding. These are filled with cerebrospinal fluid, which cushions and provides nutrients for the brain and spinal cord.

New cells of this type develop during peak periods of brain development.

Generated at a rate of 250,000 per minute.

Glial cells- join with other developing cells of this kind and begin forming the structures of the developing nervous system.

The third and longest period of prenatal development, extending from the ninth week until birth.

End of 3rd month- fetus can move its arms, legs, mouth, and head. fetus becomes capable of reflexive responses

4th month- quickening- feeling the fetus move

Distinct sleep-wake cycles and period of activity

6th month- brain is that of a newborn

Final 2 months- fetus doubles in weight,

Newborn's brain is about 1/4th the size of an adult brain (less than 1lb)

Neurons grow in size and continue to develop new dendrites and interconnections with other neurons

Myelin forms on axons in key areas of the brain

Reflexes, recognition, vision

Physical development

Social and personality development

Language development

Gender development

Cognitive development

Rooting reflex- turning towards source of touch when cheek is touched

Sucking reflex

Grasping reflex- grasping fingers to pull self up

Newborns senses are keely attuned to people (most fixated on people)

Within just hours of birth, newborns display a preference for their mother's voice and face from a stranger's

Vision is the least developed sense at birth- optimal distance is 6-12 inches (extremely nearsighted)

7-8 months of age- begin crawling, vision is as clear as that of their parents

Brain will grow from 25% of that of an adult to 75% of that of an adult, body weight will grow from 5% to 20% of that of an adult

Cephalocaudal- "Head to tail"- physical and motor skill development tends to follow a "top to bottom" sequence. Develops control over her head, chest, and arms before developing control over the lower part of her body and legs

Proximodistal trend- tendency of infants to develop motor control from the center of their bodies outwards.

Each infant will have their own timetable of physical maturation and developmental readiness to master different motor skills.

Social and Personality Development

Inborn predispositions to consistently behave and react in a certain way.

Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess- study on how tempermental qualities influence adjustment throughout life. Found that about 2/3 of babies can be classified into one of three broad tempermental patterns: easy, difficult and slow-to-warm-up. The remaining third were classified as normal

Jerome Kagan- classified temperment in terms of reactivity- high reactive and low reactive

Individual differences have a genetic and biological basis

Environmental experiences also modify temperment

Cultural beliefs have an effect as well

Readily adapt to new experiences

Generally display positive moods and emotions

Have regular sleeping and eating patterns

tend to be intensely emotional

Irritable and fussy

Cry a lot

Tend to have irregular sleeping and eating patterns

Low activity level

Withdraw from new situations and people

Adapt to new experiences very gradually

React intensely to new experiences, stangers, and novel objects

Tend to be tense, fearful, and inhibited

Tend be be calmer, uninhibited, and bolder

Scoiable rather than shy

More likely to show interest than fear when exposed to new people, experiences, and objects

The emotional bond that forms between an infant and caregiver(s), especially his or her parents.

Spitz- showed detrimental effects of institutionalization of children who were deprived of a relationship with a warm, loving caregiver

Contact comfort- Harlow shows that all primates need attachment

The parent or caregiver functions as a secure base for the infant, providing a sense of comfort and security- a safe haven from which the infant can explore and lear about the environment.

An infant's ability to thrive physically and psychologically depends in large part on the quality of attachment.

Secure attachment- parents are warm, responsive and sensitive to their infant's needs. Infant's expectations that her needs will be met is the most essential ingredient for this type of attachment.

Insecure attachment- parents are neglectful, inconsistent, or insensitive to infant's moods or behaviors. Seems to reflect an ambivalent or detached emotional relationship between an infant and his parents.

Devised by Mary D. Salter Ainsworth. typically used with infants who are between 1 and 2 years old. The baby and his mother are brought into an unfamiliar room with a variety of toys. A few minutes later, a stranger enters the room. The mother stays with the baby for a few minutes, then departs, leaving the baby alone with the stranger. After a few minutes, the mother returns, spends a few minutes in the room, leaves, and returns again.

Securely attached infant- use mother as secure base to explore the new environment, show distress when mother leaves, is warm when she returns and is easily soothed by the mother.

Insecurely attached infant- less likely to explore, may appear anxious or indifferent, ignore or avoid mothers when they are present, may become severely distressed when the mother leaves, hard to soothe and may resist mother's attempts to comfort them.

Father if he is the primary caregiver

Mother if she is the primary caregiver

Both the mother and the father when they are both present

Other consistent caregivers (relatives or workers in a day-care)

Preschoolers securely attached- more prosocial, empathic, socially competent

Middle chidhood- Better adjusted and have higher levels of social and cognitive development

Adolescents- Fewer problems, do better in school, have more successful relationships with their peers

College students- More likely to feel empathy, ability to understand another person's perspective

Noam Chomsky- every child is born with a biological ability to learn language- any language.

"Universal-grammar"- A basic understanding of the common principals of language organization. Infants are innately equipped to understand language but also to extract grammatical rules from what they hear.

At birth, infants can distinguish among the speech sounds of all the world's languages, no matter what language is spoken in their homes. (lose this ability around 10-12 months of age)

Shortly after birth- infants prefer speech over other sounds that humans make

Within the first year of life, infants begin to master the sound structure of tehir own native language.

Universal across cultures, a way that parents speak to infants to encourage language development. Characterized by a very distinct pronunciation, a simplified vocabulary, short sentences, high pitch, and exaggerated intonation and expression.

prefered by infants

Speech of parents change to fit the child's developing language abilities.

Stages of language development appear to be universal:

about 3 months- infants begin to "coo" repeating vowel sounds (ahhh, ooooo) varying the pitch up or down

about 5 months- infants begin to "babble"- add consonants to vowels and string the sounds together in sometimes long-winded productions (ba-ba-ba-ba-ba). This is immitation of adult speech. Infants around the world use the same sound when they babble, whether or not it is not a sound that occurs in their language.

about 9 months- babies babble more in sounds specific to their language

Babies being speaking around their first year. They use a single word and vocal intonation to stand for an entire sentence.

Comprehension vocabulary

Production vocabulary

The words that are understood by an infant or child.

The words that an infant or child understands and can speak.

Around 2 years of age, toddlers begin putting words together. The words used are primarily context words- nouns, verbs, and sometimes adjectives or adverbs. Articles and prepositions are omitted.

Reflect the first understanding of grammar

Children move beyond this stage around 2 and a half years of age. around 3 years old, the child has a production vocabulary of around 3,000 words. 10,000 around school age (learning 12 words a day).

Gender

Gender role

Gender identity

The cultural, social, and psychological meanings that are associated with masculinity and femininity.

The behaviors, attitudes, and personality traits that are designated as ether masculine or feminine in a given culture.

A person's psychological sense of being male or female.

The theory that gender roles are acquired through the basic processes of learning, including reinforcement, punishment, and modeling.

Children come to understand that certain activities and attributes are considered more appropriate for one sex than the other

The theory that gender-role development is influenced by the formation of schemas, or mental representations of masculinity and femininity.

Schemas influence how people pay attention to, perceive, interpret, and remember gender-relevant behavior. Also seem to lead children to perceive members of their own sex more favorably.

Gender differences are a result of generations of the dual forces of sexual selection and parental investment.

this can also be observed in adults

Buss- people gravitate towards "good genes" for their "mating strategies"

Men tend to be physically larger and stronger than women and women are biologically responsible for reproduction. These biological differences mean that it can be more efficient for men and boys to be responsible for some activities and womena and girls to be responsible for others.

Condition in which a person's psychological gender identity conflicts with his or her biological sex.

transgender man- an anatomical female who identifies with or wishes to become male

Transgender woman- an anatomical male who identifies with or wishes to become female.
Cisgender man or woman- a person whose anatomy matches their gender identity

Children actively try to make sense of their environment rather than passively soaking up information about the world. Four distinct stages (hereditary and environmental differences could influence the rate at which a given child progreses through the stages):

Sensorimotor stage

Preoperational stage

Concrete operational stage

Formal operational stage

The first stage of cognitive development, from birth to about age 2; the period during which the infant explores the environment and acquires knowledge through sensing and manipulating objects.

sensory- taste, feel, smell and sound

Motor- reaching, grasping, pushing, pulling, and pouring.

Objects "exist" only if they can sense it- at the end of this stage they develop cognitive permanence

The understanding that an object continues to exist even when it can no longer be seen.

Gain this as the infant gains experience with objects, as their sensory abilities improve, and as they develop mental representations of the world (schemas)

The second stage of cognitive development, which lasts from about age 2 to age 7, characterized by increasing use of symbols and prelogical though processes.

Symbolic thought

Child's understanding of symbols remains immature

Egocentrism

Irreversibility

Centration

Conservation

The ability to use words, images, and symbols to represent the world.

fantasy and imagination while playing

The inability to take another person's perspective or point of view.

Not selfishness or conceit- just the inability to understand how another person would view something. i.e.- thinking grandma would like a lego set

The inability to mentally reverse a sequence of events or logical operations. i.e. may not understand that 1 plus 3 and 3 plus 1 use the same logical operation.

The tendency to focus, or center, on only one aspect of a situation and ignore other important aspects of the situation.

i.e. a small fat glass holds the same as a tall skinny glass, however becuse the water appears higher in the tall and skinny glass, they will be unable to see that the amount of water is actually the same in both.

The understanding that two equal quantities remain equal even though the form or appearance is rearranged, as long as nothing is added or subtracted.

The third stage of cognitive development, which lasts from about age 7 to adolescence, characterized by the ability to think logically about concrete objects and situations.

Tend to be limited to reality- tangibe objects and events

Limited to his or her personal experiences an actual events

In Piaget's theory, the fourth stage of cognitive development, which lasts from adolescence through adulthood; characterized by the ability to think logically about abstract principals and hypothetical situations.

Thought emerges gradually, continues to increase in sophistication throughout adolescence and adulthoot.

Often limited in areas in which they have developed expertise or a special interest.

Generally scientific reasearch supports Piaget's most fundamental idea: infants, young children and older children use distinctly different cognitive abilities to construct their understanding of the world.

Piaget underestimated the cognitive abilities of infants and young children.

Piaget underestimatd the impact of the social and cultural environment on cognitive development.

Piaget overestimated the degree to which people achieve formal operational thought processes.

Renee Baillargeon developed a method on visual tasks.

Infant first watches an expected event, which is consistent with the understanding being tested.

Infant is then shown an unexpected event.

If unexpected event event violates the infants understanding of the principals, he should be surprised and look longer at the unexpected event.

This test has shown that infants as young as 2.5 months display object permanence.

What infants appear to know depends heavily on how they are tested.

Lev Vygotsky believed that cognitive development is strongly influenced by social and cultural factors.

Social interactions, especially with older children and adults, play a significant role in a child's cognitive development.

Zone of proximal development

Cognitive development is strongly influenced by the skills that are valued and encouraged in a particular environment- Piaget's stages are not as universal and culture-free as researchers once believed.

In Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development, the difference between what children can accomplish on their own and what they can accomplish with the help of others who are more competent.

Many adults show abstract-hypothetical thinking only in limited areas

Some adults never show formal operational thinking

Formal operational thinking may not be a universal phenomenon but the product of an individual's expertise in a specific area.

Some scientists suggest information-processing model of cognitive development.

The model that views cognitive development as a process that is continuous over the lifespan and that studies that development of basic mental processes such as attention, memory, and problem solving.

The transitional stage between late childhood and the beginning of adulthood, during which sexual maturity is reached.

Generally begins around age 11-12, but can vary by individual, culture, and gender.

Females are generally 2 years ahead of males

The stage of adolesence in which an individual reaches sexual maturity and becomes physiologically capable of sexual reproduction.

Early adolescence

Changes may not happen evenly, but even out towards the end of adolescence.

Sexual organs that are directly involved in reproduction, such as the uterus, ovaries, penis, and testicles.

Enlarge during puberty

Sexual characteristics that develop during puberty and are not directly involved in reproduction but differentiate between the sexes.

Male facial hair, female breasts

Ovaries increase production of estrogen and progesterone- age 9

Internal sex organs begin to grow larger- age 9 and a half

Breasts development begins- age 10

Peak height spurt- age 12

Peak muscle and organ growth, including widening of hips- age 12 and a half

Menarche- age 12 and a half

First ovulation (release of fertile egg)- age 13 and a half

Testes increase production of testosterone- age 10

External sex organ begin to grow larger - age 11

Production of sperm and first ejaculation- age 13

Peak height spurt- age 14

Peak muscle and organ growth, including broadening of shoulders- age 14 and a half

Voice lowers- age 15

Facial hair appears- age 16

The period of accelerated growth during puberty, involving rapid increases in height and weight.

Not uncommon for girls to be heavier and taller than males

A female's first menstrual period, which occurs during puberty.

Typically age 11-12, but can occur as early as ages 9-10 or 16 or 17.