Final Exam Study Guide This guide is intended to help guide you to the information that is likely to appear on the exam While all information on the exam will be covered here not all information covered here will make it to the exam If you can comprehensively answer these questions you will find yourself well prepared for the exam Topic One Lifespan Development In addition to the vocabulary presented in the pages listed above bold terms students should be able to comprehensively answer the following Concepts 1 What is the post hoc fallacy Post Hoc Fallacy After the fact it is very tempting to look at what happened before something that you are experimenting with an example would be you have a school shooting or some violent act and without exception and examine individual you would find trouble within the family or plays violent video games given that it is tempting to say their violent acts were from their home life This is falling victim to this theory 2 Why must we pay attention to possible bi directional influences in developmental research Bidirectionallity x makes y happen a kid who misbehaves which is y we might be tempted to say his parents don t treat him very well therefore the parents behavior causes the misbehavior in the kid in post hoc fallacy but bidirectionality says it is a double sided error the parents actions effects the child s behavior and the child s behavior effects the parents actions Your teacher is mean to you because the kid behaved wrong This is why post hoc is wrong maybe being violent causes one to buy video games 3 What are the pros and cons of a cross sectional b longitudinal research Let s say we want to know the effects on driving on age One way is to get a group of people and study them over time they start driving really well but by age 60 there reaction time is slower and there not as good The problem with this is that nobody wants to be followed around for 40 years This is called longitudinal design Instead you might want to look at different age groups at the same time I am going to find 20 year olds 40 years old and 60 years and you compare their driving techniques and 20 years old are good and 40s are bad This is called cross sectional design this talk about age differences not age changes The problem with this is that you have age group effects there are a lot of differences between a modern day 20 year old and 60 year old one thing that comes to mind is 20 years will text and not 60 year olds This is called cohort effects 4 What are genes How do they influence our development How do they interact with our environment Monogastic is exactly alike Disgoatic is 50 50 like regular siblings Identical twins are more similar then fraternal twins on stuff such as heights muscle mass alcoholism IQ etc What is a gene video actg contains information for a cell that make proteins to build things such as hormones freckles A single strand of DNA contains many genes A gene is a specialized strand of DNA that contains a code Nature vs Nurture What do we mean by environmental influences The short answer is everything that is not genes such as peers teachers weather you live in how many peanuts you eat when you re young It could be prenatal Gene environment interaction Expression of your genes depends on the environmental you find yourself in ex If you grow up in an area that does not contain alcohol it is hard to find that you are a alcoholic Nature via nurture Genes cause us to choose a particular environment where these genes can be utilized Small nature differences can influence the environment you select which then influences the gene back Gene expression this changes You can actively deactivate genes You also can change it through exercise Ex arm wrestle wanted to be the best but did not want to change weight classes so he only trained one arm Environmental seems to be the one that helps us change not genetics because genetics don t change Psychologist haven t found an answer of what s genetic and what s environmental 5 Understand the early development of the brain and the processes of proliferation and pruning We start as a cell egg and sperm come together We start as a zigoat no legs no arms Once we get passed this stage we see differences like the development of brain spinal cord heart etc Then we begin to see ourselves as a embryo This then begins to be a fetal period We begin to develop brain cells which helps make are personality During this period proliferation particularly of brain cells during this 250 000 brain cells are being produced per minute Babies begin to prune where there figuring out what they need and what they don t need they get rid of brain cells they don t need Prental period important things are going known consequences resulting from exposure to them 6 Know what a teratogen is and give some examples of teratogens and Teratogens broad description of any chemical that can cause birth defects example is alcohol this is the most widely known Fetal alcohol syndrome is what happens when a mother is drinking which causes defects such as cognitive impairment Up to 50 percent of fertilize eggs are unborn They fail to implant in the right place or some genetic abnormality happens Also another thing is tobacco it s the second most highly used which means low birth weight Low birth weight is compared with cognitive impairment physical impairment The third is prescription drugs when you are pregnant you have to worry about all the chemicals you put in your body such as food and drugs that could affect the embryo Phillidiymine is a drug that was prescribed that was very effective at eliminating nausea Pregnant woman took this drug and it caused horrible birth defects Impaired the arms and legs and made them small 7 How does universal physical development give us hints about nature s role in a child s early development What are some examples of universal physical development Universal physical development finding from across cultures homospeians develop in the same way same features 6 month they start sitting without support 9 months you see crawling 11 months standing 12 months they start cruising 13 months walking without assistance 18 24 months is running If a child is slightly behind it s not that big of a deal if it comes extremely late that is not okay After four months a baby can smile Babies sleep a lot throughout the day they don t sleep all at the same time as parents About 3 months should be mostly at night 8 What are infant
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