PSY240 Winter 2019
Mid Term Exam
Answer 10 of the following questions (20 points each).
You must answer at least 5 from questions 1-8 and 5 from questions 9-16.
1) List and briefly describe the 5 guiding principles of development.
· Both nature and nurture – Genetics and environment play cooperative roles in development with one affecting the other and vice versa.
· Multiple layers of ecology – Different levels of interaction from personal to societal to historical all play a role in development.
· Dynamic process – Individuals act on their lives and react to the circumstances, NO complete determinism based environmental and genetic factors.
· Complete total – The whole human is based on the sum of its individual parts. Events of the past add to the events of the present to forecast a future.
· Learning is continuous – Development occurs throughout an entire life. People are capable of change beyond past and present genetic and environmental conditions.
2) Briefly describe the methods and types of studies used by developmental psychologists.
Methods to gather data on development are sorted into 3 categories: Observational, self-reported, and standardized testing.
· Observational research is data collected from scientists looking at individuals and recording what they are doing. This type of research is the norm in development psychology research, but had the downside of being very time consuming. Observations can also be further broken down into 3 subcategories:
1. Naturalistic observation = Looking without any interference.
2. Participant observation = Looking and interacting with individuals in their environment.
3. Structured observation = Looking and interacting with individuals in a controlled environment with specific procedures for various actions to take.
· Self-Reports are data collected through surveys or interviews with individuals. This type of research is quick and easy to perform, but runs the risk of being highly inaccurate due to individuals who lie or do not understand the questions.
· Standardize tests are data collected through measuring various psychological and or physiological factors with instruments. This type of research is highly structured and is often both accurate and precise. However, the tests are often expensive to administer.
The 3 different research methods are further studied over a period of time using three different types of developmental studies: longitudinal, cross-sectional, and accelerated longitudinal.
· Longitudinal = Follow the same individuals as they age.
· Cross-sectional = Study individuals from multiple age groups at the same point in time.
· Accelerated longitudinal = Follow the same individuals of different age groups over time.
3) Describe how views of the ways genetic and environmental forces influence development have changed over time; and discuss what is the contemporary view (be sure to include names of the scientists behind the past views).
Before humans even fully understood genetics, they had a basic understanding that a child appears similar to their father or mother due some passed traits. Unfortunately, some took this to be the sole influential factor in development. Their theories focused only on the genetic forces of development: preformation, infantile innocence, and eugenics.
· Preformation – View advocated by Western religious groups. Little man or woman in father’s sperm grows up during development.
· Infantile innocence – View advocated by Jean Jacques Rousseau. Children are born innocent and their developments are predetermined by nature ahead of time.
· Eugenics – View advocated by many groups in the 20th century, especially the Nazis. An individual actions and future are predetermined by the genes of their parents. Therefore, for a better society only good genes should be selected to pass on.
Despite being initially proposed by John Locke, the belief that the environment was the sole determinant in an individual’s development came more to the forefront in the 20th century with the growth of behaviorism. Unfortunately, their theories completely ignored possible influences of genetics traits and focused only on environmental factors: Blank slate, and Behaviorism.
· Blank slate – View advocated by John Locke. Argued that child born as a blank slate that grows under environmental influences.
· Behaviorism – View advocated by Pavlov, and Watson (later Skinner would be another proponent). Promoted belief that development was a result of reinforcement of positive actions and punishment of negative actions.
The reality of the situation is that development is a combination of both genetics and environment. The contemporary ideas of heritability, epigenetics and evolution reflect this interplay of genes and environment.
· Heritability = Calculation as to how much different physical traits are genetically determined. Genetics can determine phenotype only up to a certain extent.
· Epigenetics = Regulation of genes, activation and inhibition of different genes can produce a variety of traits.
· Evolution = As put forth by Darwin. Organisms with advantageous traits live on to pass their genes onto their offspring (survival of the fittest).
The theory of evolution is closely tied to the concepts of heritability and epigenetics. Heritability helps to determine how much of a trait is genetic or environment. Epigenetics determines what environmental factors activate specific genes. Combined both play roles in how specific genes in organisms are passed down and expressed in specific environments.
5) Describe what happens during the zygotic, embryonic and fetal stages of prenatal development.
· Zygotic Stage (1-2 weeks)
Fertilization of the ovum with sperm results in a newly fused cell, the zygote. In the first week, as the zygote travels down the fallopian tubes to the uterus, the cells multiply by mitosis along the way changing from zygote to morula to blastocyst. The cells also differentiate along the way leaving the outer most cells with a different role from the inner cells. During the second week, the blastocyst then implants itself onto the wall of the uterus.
· Embryonic Stage (2-8 weeks)
Embryo forms 3 specialized layers ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm. Ectoderm changes into the skin, nerves, and sensory organs. Mesoderm changes into the bones, muscles, and organs of the circulatory system. Endoderm changes into the digestive tract, urinary tract, lungs, and glands. Protective amniotic sac also forms. For the next 6 weeks the embryo appears more like a human as central nervous system (CNS) forms, neurons are produced, and the organs start to function.
· Fetal Stage (8 weeks – birth)
All the organs are organized and connected. Completion of the CNS and neurogenesis allows for quickening (fetal movements) to occur at about 4 months. These are followed up by actions performed by the fetus such as breathing, kicking, and crying. Further development allows the fetus to hear and react to auditory stimuli. Gender also develops during the first 3 months, with males forming testicles and a penis and females forming a clitoris and vulva.
8) Describe the process of language development in infancy.
Most infants are born capable of hearing sounds albeit at a lower level than adults. Thus, they respond with coos and later babbles to presented stimuli. This improves over the next 6 months so that infants can hear as much as adults. The process of learning a language requires that the babies understand the definition of words (semantics) and the correct order of words (syntax).
Semantics comes first and continues to develop throughout life. Speaking to infants with infant-directed speech aids in language acquisition through repetition, tone, and intonation. By this time the infants will start to repeat specific syllables. The infant-directed speech, gestures and turn taking help to reinforce auditory stimuli presented in a structured manner. At the 12-month mark, after observing and listening to language for months on end, the infant will speak its first word. The infant then takes this first word and uses it as stand in replacement for a specific phrase leading to that one word being repeated over and over. Through the process of induction, a process of drawing conclusions from examples, infants easily pick up new words, acquiring about 4 new words per day. The rapid pace at which they pick up new vocabulary is called fast mapping and runs against common problems of whole object assumption (Is the object being referred the part or whole?) and mutual exclusivity (What other words fall under a category?). Semantics further develops as the infant’s vocabulary increases with age.
Syntax comes second. After the infants have developed an extensive bank of vocabulary they now must put the words in correct sentence order. Noam Chomsky argued that babies have an innate universal grammar that helps them in their journey to learn sentence structure. This innate universal grammar helps provide a basic foundation for sentence structure all children have despite their differing circumstances and backgrounds.
10) Define/discuss John Bowlby’s theory of attachment.
Bowlby believed that parent-child attachment was an evolutionary social adaptation that allowed infants to survive. By forming an attachment to the parent, a child’s needs such as food and safety could be met. The attachments formed early on within the first few months post birth and occurred in four stages: Indiscriminate social response, discriminating sociability, attachments, goal-corrected partnerships.
· Indiscriminate social response (1-2months) – Child starts to form attachment with anyone that will respond to his or her signals.
· Discriminating sociability (2-7months) – Significant others associated with nourishment and stress relief creating special connection. Behavioral development results in less frequent distress.
· Attachments (7-24months) – Infants actively seek specific caregiver. When left by specific caregiver babies start to cry in an attempt to make their familiar caregiver return, known as separation protest.
· Goal-oriented partnership (3+years) – Child takes parents needs into account before seeking comfort and nourishment.
The first two stages indiscriminate social response and discriminating sociability is the sensitive period that determines who the infant will attach to. If the caregivers provide both a high quality and quantity of care, the infant will attach to them.
12) Discuss how attachment, temperament, and parenting style are linked to a child’s development. “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” – Tolstoy
Parenting styles vary in the levels of control and warmth resulting in four types:
· Authoritative – High control + High warmth
· Authoritarian – High control + Low warmth
· Permissive – Low control + High warmth
· Disengaged – Low control + Low warmth
While parenting style do play a major role in child development, parenting styles alone are not completely responsible. Other factors such as temperaments and attachments are also connected.
An infant’s biologically based temperament can either be positive or negative affectivity. Positive affectivity contains all the beneficial qualities such as cheerful, happy, energetic, and motivated. Negative affectivity contains all the adverse qualities such as sad, angry, shy, and scared. Negative affectivity infants are difficult to raise and often clash with various parenting styles. Parenting styles such as authoritarian and disengaged parents would have an increased risk of punishing or neglecting a difficult child. The negative temperament is thus, compounded by the poor parenting resulting in an insecure attachment.
There are 4 types of attachment based on the stranger situation experiment: Type A, B, C, and D.
· Type A (Insecure-avoidant) – Intrusive helicopter parents
· Type B (Secure attachment) – Sensitive parents
· Type C (Insecure-resistant) – Unresponsive parents
· Type D (Disoriented) – Abusive parents
All, but Type B indicated that that the child suffers from a strained parent-child relationship. Such strains produce an effect on the child’s development in the form of low self-esteem, poor socioeconomic outcomes, and poor health outcomes.
A child’s temperament can benefit or harm their chances of good parenting, as difficult children easily frustrate parents. The frustrated parent is less likely to provide a secure based of growth for the child resulting in a Type A, C, or D attachment.
14) Define/discuss the characteristics of concrete operational thinking.
Concrete operational thinking is logic in action. Children’s logic is capable of classification, class inclusion, seriation, transitive inference, and reversibility. The classification allows them to understand that certain objects also have additional subgroups such as cars being further broken down into SUVs, minivans, vans, pickups, 4-door-sedans, 2-door-sedans, and sports cars. Class inclusion is what allows children to understand that certain categories overlap such as a chicken being a bird and a dinosaur. Seriation is how children understand how to put objects in specific order such as from largest to smallest. Transitive interference is mathematical logic that allows children to extrapolate from base knowledge such as A = B, B = C, therefore A = C. Reversibility is the ability of the child to understand the conservation of mass and number such as water being the same volume despite the shape of the container.
15) Discuss Kohlberg’s three levels or moral reasoning.
Kohlberg’s three levels of moral reasoning are pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional.
· Pre-conventional = Looking at the perspective of the situation from possible rewards and dangers present. Example: If I steal lollipops for hungry kids could my parents catch me and punish me? Punishment is a big possible deterrent.
· Conventional = Looking at the perspective of the situation by societal rules and parental approval. Example: Parents and teachers say that stealing is wrong regardless of the reason so I should not steal.
· Post-conventional = Looking at the situation based on abstract ideas such as fairness or a hierarchy of needs. Here is where the famous gray area thinking appears. Example: Hungry children need nourishment for a better future. If society will not provide it for I will do it myself.
Overtime children progress to higher levels of thinking, although the age standards are not set as some take longer to reach high levels of understanding.
16) Describe/discuss the different forms of aggression demonstrated in childhood.
Aggression by children towards others takes three forms physical, verbal, and relational.
· Physical – hands on violence
· Verbal – name calling and verbal threats
· Relational – social reputation attack
While the physical form of aggression is more common earlier on, there is a decrease in physical violence, as children get better at social negotiations. Unfortunately, a decrease in violence does not always mean a decrease in aggression as verbal and relational aggressions sometimes rise to become the new weapons of war on the playground.
Verbal name-calling rises because the trade off for risks is low. Instead of physically fighting it out, a slight vulgar phase can simply be blurted out while walking by with little to no effort. Relational aggression can especially get bad when relation aggression is employed to isolate victims in bullying, thereby strengthening the bully and weakening the victim.
Reasons for aggression can be broken down into 3 categories:
· Reactive – Self defense (Treat others the way you want to be treated)
· Instrumental – Ulterior motives (Looking for gain)
· Hostile – Desire to inflict pain for pains sake
Unfortunately, the reasons for aggression are not always clear and sometimes have overlap.
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