1 PSY 2012 Final Exam Study Guide Topic One Lifespan Development What is the post hoc fallacy The False assumption that because one event occurred before another event it must have caused that event The mistake of assuming that because A comes before B A must have caused B Why must we pay attention to possible bi directional influences in developmental research Children s experiences influence their development but their development also influences what they experience Psychological traffic from parents to children runs in both directions Parents influence their children s behavior which in turn influences parents reactions and so on It s crucial to keep bidirectional influences in mind because pop psychology is full on unidirectional explanations o Unidirectional Explanations Those that attempt to explain development in terms of a one headed arrow o These only tell part of the story What are the pros and cons of a cross sectional b longitudinal research Cross Sectional Research o A design in which researchers examine people who are of different ages at a single point in time o We obtain a snapshot of each person at a single age we assess some people at 24 and others at 47 etc o Cons Don t control for Cohort effects due to the fact that sets of people who lived during one time period called cohorts can differ in some systematic way from sets of people who lived during a different time period Longitudinal Research o The only way around the problem of Cross Sectional Research o Psychologists track the development of the same group of participants over time o Rather than obtaining a snapshot of each person at only one point in time we obtain the equivalent of a series of home movies taken at different ages o Allows us to examine true Development Effects Changes over time within individuals as a consequence of growing older o Cons Can be costly and time consuming Attrition Participants dropping out of the study before it is completed What are genes How do they influence our development How do they interact with our environment Gene A genetic material composed of deoxyribonucleic acid Genes and environment are confounded Gene Environment Interactions The impact of genes on behavior depends on the environment in which the behavior develops Nature via Nurture Genetic predispositions can drive us to select and create particular environments that influence our behavior leading to the mistaken appearance of a pure effect of nature o Nurture affords children the opportunity to express their genetic tendencies o Ex As they grow older highly fearful children tend to seek out environments that protect them from their anxieties Gene Expression Some genes turn on only in response to specific environmental events Understand the early development of the brain and the processes of proliferation and pruning The human brain begins to develop a mere 18 days after fertilization even early adulthood Our brains continue to develop well into adolescence and probably Proliferation Between the 18th day of pregnancy and the end of the 6th month neurons begin developing at an astronomical rate o As high as 250 000 brain cells per minute at peak times Brain must also organize cells to perform coordinated functions starting in the 4th month and continuing throughout pregnancy migration of cells begin to occur Pruning Consisting of the death of certain neurons and the retraction of axons to remove connections that aren t useful Know what a teratogen is and give some examples of teratogens and known consequences resulting from exposure to them Teratogens Environmental factors that can affect prenatal development negatively o Drugs alcohol chicken pox to X Rays o Anxiety and depression are potential teratogens because they alter the fetus s chemical and physiological environment Alcohol exposure can result in Fetal Alcohol Syndrome which includes a host of symptoms such as learning disabilities physical growth retardation facial malformations and behavioral disorders Cigarette smoking during pregnancy is one of the most prevalent teratogens o Mothers are likely to deliver low birth weight babies which is linked to a high risk of death infection development delays and even psychological disorders anxiety Some teratogens can influence how specific parts of the brain develop while others exert a more general impact on brain development 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 Oral Stage Anal Stage Phallic Stage Latency Stage Genital Stage o The baby is able to suck o The child is able to defecate from the anus o Child is aware of their sexual organs o Child s sexual interests are repressed o Puberty starts to happen What are infant reflexes Give some examples What is their function Infants are born with a large set of automatic motor behaviors or reflexes that are triggered by specific types of stimulation Reflexes fulfill important survival needs Sucking Reflex An automatic response to oral stimulation Rooting Reflex Serves the same survival need eating Who is Jean Piaget How did he develop his theories of development Believed that children s moral development like other aspects of their development is constrained by their level of cognitive development Jean Piaget is a Swiss psychologist o A Stage Theorist Proposed that children s development is marked by radical reorganization of thinking at specific transition points followed by periods during which their understanding of the world stabilizes Was the first person to present a comprehensive account of Attempted to identify the stages that children pass through on their cognitive development way to adult like thinking Piaget s theory led to the formation of cognitive development as a distinct discipline yet most research in this field focused on substantiating or most recently refuting his claims Proposed that cognitive change is a result of children s need to achieve equilibrium maintaining a balance between their experience of the world and their understanding of it What are Piaget s stages of cognitive development Explain each Sensorimotor Stage o From birth till 2 years o Marked by a focus on the here and now o Children s main sources of knowledge thinking and experience are their physical interactions with the world o Mental Representation Major Milestone Ability to think about things that are absent from immediate surroundings such as
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