Developmental Psychology Exam 1 STUDY GUIDE READING NOTES CHAPTER 1 3 good reasons for learning about child development 1 raising children 2 choosing social policies o many parents do not know how to promote their children s management of anger and other negative emotions express sympathy so the child could cope with the situation better help angry children find positive alternatives to expressing anger o Denham burton provided a special curriculum that was devised for helping preschoolers 3 and 4 who were angry and out of control teachers helped students recognize their own and other childrens emotions and taught them techniques for resolving anger turtle technique when children felt themselves becoming angry they must move away from the other children and retreat to their turtle shell where they could think through the situation until they were ready to emerge o to make informed decisions not just about ones own children but also about a wide variety of social policy questions that affect children in general o ex are public resources better spent trying to detect and prevent potential developmental problems in young children who seem at risk for them or is it more cost effective to reserve the resources for treating children who have actually developed problems o More than 100 000 children testify in legal cases each year may result in serious consequences for possibly innocent people how can we believe a childs testimony o Experiment researchers designed a test to see whether biased questioning affects the accuracy of young childrens memory for events involving touching ones own and other peoples bodies 3 to 6 year olds play simon says and were told to touch their body and other kids bodies a month later the kids were interviewed and social worker was already given a description of the childs experiences and found that children would change their responses based on the question o The younger the children are the more susceptible they are and the more their recall reflects the biases of the interviewers questions questions need to be stated in a neural manner o Illustrate how the knowledge of child development can inform social policies 3 understanding human nature o many of the most intriguing questions regarding human nature involve children o research program examined children whose early life was spent horrible in inadequate orphanages in Romania Children in these orphanages had almost no contact with the caregiver A number of these children were adopted by families in great Britain and when they arrived into these homes they were malnourished with more than half being in the lowest 3 of height weight and head circumference Most showed varying degrees of mental retardation and were socially immature the parents were highly motivated to provide loving homes The physical intellectual and social development of 150 of these kids were evaluated and it was found by age 6 the children s physical development improved but their early child experience influenced their development and children adopted before 6 months demonstrated intellectual competence but those that were adopted at an older age did less well o had effects on social development as well the timing of experiences influences their effects Identify a strength and a limitation in the contributions of philosophers and early scientific theorists to the study of child development o Both Plato and Aristotle believed that long term welfare of society emphasized self control and discipline as the most important depended on the proper raising of children Careful upbringing was essential because childrens basic nature would otherwise lead to their becoming rebellious and unruly o Plato goals of education believed that children are born with innate knowledge ex born with a concept of animal that from birth onward automatically allows them to recognize that the dogs cats and other creatures they encounter are animals o Aristotle agreed that discipline was necessary but he was more concerned with fitting child rearing to the needs of the individual child believed that all knowledge comes from experience and that the mind of an infant is like a black board on which nothing has been written o John Locke and Jacques Rousseau refocused attention on the question on how parents and society in general can be promote children s development was similar to Aristotle in that he viewed the child as tubla rasa o Locke blank slate whose development largely reflects the nurture provided by the childs parents and the broader society He believed that the o Rousseau most important goal of child rearing in is the growth of character parents need to set a good example of honest stability and gentleness but discipline and reason have to be instilled as well believed that parents and society should give children maximum freedom from the beginning He clamed that children learn primarily from their own spontaneous interactions with objects and other people rather than through instruction by parents or teachers Argued that children should not receive any formal education until 12 when they reached the age of reason and can judge for themselves the worth of what they read and are told freedom to explore interests Explain 7 enduring themes in development 1 nature and nurture how do nature and nurture shape development a Nature is our biological endowment the genes we receive from our parents this genetic inheritance influences every aspect of our makeup from broad characteristics such as physical appearance to our political attitudes and propensity for thrill seeking b Nurture and social that influence our development including the womb in which we spend the prenatal period the homes in which we grow up the schools we attend and the communities we live and ppl we interact with refers to the wide range of environments both physical c Every characteristic we possess is created through the joint workings of nature and nurture constant interaction of genes and our environment d Findings on schizophrenia a serious mental illness characterized by hallucinations delusions disordered thinking and irrational behavior children of schizophrenic parents do not develop the illness themselves but they have a higher probability of developing it if one twin has schizophrenia one has a 50 chance of getting it the environment is extremely influential as well children in troubled homes have more of a chance of getting it than children in good homes e Study of adopted children