Final Questions
The plight of developmental psychology is to prove what every grandparent already knows. Pick a saying that could come out of a grandparent's mouth, describe the developmental theory and data that provide evidence in favor of this saying.
"Zack, I do not care about the outcome, I care about your effort" Incremental/mastery orientation In an important study conducted in New York public Schools, Dweck and colleagues found that 7th graders with incremental theory of intelligence showed upward trajectory in math scores over next two uears, while entity kids remained flar Provided 8 session intervention to entity kids that taught them brain plasticity and incremental theory of intelligence Kids in intervention showed positive sins Motivate kids through effort and positive reinforcement, helping them climb up from failure to ensure that they can remain strong and continue forward
What are 3 characteristics that distinguish human language from animal communication? Provide evidence from the textbook/lecture to support your claims.
1) Syntax - Vicki 2)Ease of language development, especially in critical period - Modularity Hypothesis - Brain damage 3) Development of conversation skills - Collective monologues - Pragmatic develppment - Perspective taking
With Dweck's theoretical framework in mind, briefly describe how you generally respond to failure. How might this tendency have actively influenced your own behavior, including the types of activities you sought (or did not seek)? How might it have influenced the behavior of teachers, parents, and peers toward you?
Achievement motivation: Refers to whether children are motivated by learning goals, seeking to improve their competence and master new material, or by performance goals, seeking to receive positive assessments of their competence or to avoid negative assessments IE incremental vs. entity intelligence Incremental: Belief that intelligence can be developed through effort - focuses on mastery Entity/helpless orientation: Goal is to be successful, and as long as she is succeeding, all is well. When she fails, she feels helpless. General tendency to attribute success and failure to enduring aspects of the self and to give up I have a very incremental/mastery view of intelligence. I do not believe that my intelligence is fixed, but that it can grow with time and experience. I always believed that I could work harder and do better, and when I failed, I remembered all that I learned and used that as a mechanism to pick myself up and try harder In high school, I chose A.P. classes that I knew would be difficult, but would offer me the most learn and opportunity to grow I enjoy hard challenges, and I often did the sunday Crossword puzzles with my father, working hard every week to get better Parents: Encouraged me to work hard and enjoy the ride - always told me that they cared about my effort, not the outcome, knowing that I put hard work in to enjoy the challenge and continuously get better Teachers: Called on me in class and when I got it wrong, they saw that I was able to move on. They encouraged my effort. Peers: I chose friends similar to my personality, hard working resilient kids who did not want to take the easy route. We challenged one another in bike races and basketball, went on difficult hikes, went down difficult ski trails. We did not dwell on failure, and encourage one another to put hard effort in and enjoy the ride.
Is language innate? Give examples of two different viewpoints with regard to this question. Within each viewpoint, provide evidence that supports the theory.
Chromsky and his nativist view: - Universal Grammar - Modularity Hypothesis Social: - Parents have similar goals with children in development and early years - Social context: Children are motivated to interact with others, to communicate their own thoughts and feelings, and to understand what other people are trying to communicate to them. - Parental Reinforcement: Smiling
Compare social-cultural and information-processing theories. Compare their goals and then pick a single developmental phenomenon and describe how each theory interprets the data differently to align with the theory.
Conservation of Number Problem Sociocultural: Approaches that emphasize that other people and the surrounding culture contribute greatly to children's development. - Social Scaffolding - Guided Participation Information Processing: - Working/Longterm memory - Encocing - Overlapping Waves Theory
Describe a specific aspect of development that interests you (e.g., development of number, identity, morality), and describe three mechanisms of change that are involved in this phenomenon. One mechanism of change should be biological, one should be social/cultural, and one should be cognitive. Support these claims with descriptions of relevant studies.
Development of prosocial behavior: Prosocial behavior: Voluntary behavior intended to benefit another, such as helping, sharing with, and comforting others There is developmental consistency in children's readiness to engage in prosocial behaviors, such as sharing, helping, and comforting Biological: Many biologists and psychologists have proposed that humans are biologically predisposed to be prosocial. They believe that humans have evolved the capacity for prosocial behavior because collaboration in foraging for food and in repelling enemies ensured survival. According to this view, people who help others are more likely than less helpful people to be assisted when they themselves are in need and, thus, are more likely to survive and reproduce In support of view that people have evolved to be prosocial, researchers have found that 2 year olds are happier when they give treats then when they receive them Genetic factors do contribute to differences in prosocial characteristics In studies with adults, twins' reports of their own empathy and sympathy ad prosocial behavior are more similar for identical than fraternal twins. Specific genes are associated with oxytocin, hormone associated with parental attachment, empathy, and sympathy Antisocial: high testosterone or neurological deficits that affect attention or aggression Social: Modeling/communication of values Children tend to imitate other people's helping and sharing behavior, including even that of strangers. (Especially if they have a positive relationship with the adult) Study of individuals who risked their lives to rescue jews from naziss in Europe When recalling values they learned from parents, 44% mentioned generosity and caring for others, compared to 21% of bystanders. 7 times more likely to say that this care should be applied to everyone Opportunities for prosocial activities: Granting participation in prosocial activities may also give children and adolescents opportunities to take others' perspectives, to increase their confidence that they are competent to assist others, and to experience emotional rewards for helping. Discipline and parenting style: Constructive and supportive parenting, and parental supportive and attachment to children lead to higher sympathy and regulation, which elicits higher levels of prosocial behavior Anstisocial: harsh or abusive punishmen provides kids with salient examples of aggression Cognitive: Differences in children's ability to regulate emotion are related to their empathy and sympathy. Children who are able to experience emotions without getting overwhelmed by it are especially likely to act prosocially. Regulation also related to children's theory of mind, and theory of mind predicts children's prosocial behaviors Theory of mind; Organized understanding of how mental processes such as intentions, desires, beliefs, perceptions, and emotions influence behavior Leads to overall knowledge of other people and how things influence their actions Perspective taking Theory of mind and psychological understanding arises from interactions with other people Cite evidence that on false-belief tasks, preschoolers who have siblings perform better Also cite ability to reason about complex counterfactual statements Ability to suppress desire to think that other person knows what they know Antisocial: View world through an aggressive lens - more likely to interpret ambiguous situation as intentional rather than accidental
The three graphs below depict developmental progressions: stage like theories, continuity, and tuning. Give an example of each type of developmental change and support the description with evidence.
Discontinuous: - Piaget Stages of cognitive development and view of objects in brain - Sensorimotor, preoperations, concrete operational, formal operational - Object permanence/ A-not-B - fail at conservation concept - Centration - Pendulum problem - Systematic testing Continuous: Social Learning Theory Albert Bandura and imitation Tuning: Systematic desensitization
Choose a developmental progression that may appear at first glance to be discontinuous. Describe in what ways the progression is continuous and in what ways it is discontinuous. From what theoretical perspective would it look continuous, and from what perspective would it appear discontinuous?
Discontinuous: Piaget's theory depicted children as using a particular strategy to solve a particular class of problems. For example, he described 5-year-olds as solving a conservation-of-number problem by choosing the longer row of objects, and 7-year-olds as solving the problem by reasoning that if nothing was added or subtracted, the number of objects must remain the same Continuous: According to overlapping waves theory, a part of Information-Processing Theories, however, individual children usually use a variety of approaches to solve such problems - for instance, examining 5-year-olds' reasoning on repeated trials of the conservation-of-number problem reveals that most children use at least three different strategies. The same child who on one trial incorrectly reasons that the longer row must have more objects will on other trails correctly reason that the longer row must have more objects will on other trails correctly reason that just spreading a row does not change the number of objects; then on other trials, the child will count the number of objects in the two rows to see which has more. With age and experience, the strategies that produce more successful performances become more prevalent; new strategies are also generated, and, if they are more effective than previous approaches, are used increasingly Children discover new strategies that are more effective than the previous ones, they learn to execute both new and old strategies more efficiently, and they choose strategies that are more appropriate to the particular problem and situation Why it may appear discontinuous at first: At any age, a child will have a dominating strategy. Hence, with only a small amount of testing or inquiry, you may only see a specific strategy in use. Then at a later age, again with only a small amount of testing, a different dominating strategy will be in use. Hence in this sense, the dominating strategy that is used most often is discontinues, changing through age and development However, in reality the same child who may use a dominating strategy for the first question may use a more advanced/less advanced one for a different difficulty type. When wrong, they may switch strategies to then figure out the correct answer. Throughout any point of time, a child will have multiple strategies they can employ at any time, and the usage of these strategies will change over development, shifting with age and experience. It is not sudden shifts, but gradual as more advanced strategies rise in usage and less advanced ones fall with failure.
Consider Erikson's stages of development and the stages of racial identity development (nigresence, white identity, or multiracial). For both models, what stage do you believe you are in? For each explain your reasoning. How does your stage of racial identity development differ from your Eriksonian stage? How are they similar? How does understanding one stage help you understand the other?
Erikson's stage: Identity Versus Role Confusion (adolescence to early adulthood) The dramatic physical changes of puberty and the emergence of strong sexual urges are accompanied by new social pressures including a need to make educational and occupational decisions. Caught between past identity as a child and the many options and uncertainties of their future, adolescents must resolve the question of who they really are or live in confusion about what roles they should play as adults. During this stage, the adolescent or young adult either develops an identity or experiences an incomplete and sometimes incoherent sense of self Researchers have dilinated additional research into specific parts of idenity formation: I am in the Moratorium Stage - period in which the individual is exploring various occupational and ideological choices and has not made a clear commitment to them I do not know what I am meant to be on this earth. My two majors describe my confusion, economics and psychology. Economics because I have always wanted to make good money since I was a little kid, but psychology because I care a lot about people and learning how humans work. This is a recent development in college as I have learned to take a step back and enjoy my experiences with the people around me. Thus, while there is a likely bridge between the two, I am insecure about what my occupation after college will be and am unsure about what exactly I want to go into White Identity Development: I am currently in the Pseudo-Independent Stage Intellectual understanding of racism as a systematic advantage of oppression, but I don't know what to do with it I feel guilty - I recently dated a black girl in my Sophomore class, and whenever she talked about her background, I was always worried to compare my family to hers, afraid of upsetting or causing her discomfort. I always felt guilty of my systematic advantage, and I never really knew what to do about it. I experience my whiteness as a source of shame rather than as a source of pride Together, but play into my unsure and insecure identities. I do not know what I am or what I am supposed to be, and I am working towards trying to figure both my identity and my future will be.
Describe what you believe are the three most important pieces of information you learned in this course that will influence your parenting if you choose to have a child. For each piece of information, please describe the phenomena/finding thoroughly while providing supporting evidence.
Incremental/mastery orientation vs. entity/helpless orientation Incremental: Belief that intelligence can be developed through effort - focuses on mastery Entity: Goal is to be successful, and as long as she is succeeding, all is well. When she fails, she feels helpless. General tendency to attribute success and failure to enduring aspects of the self and to give up I want my kids to have an incremental/mastery achievement motivation, motivated by effort and learning. They will not equate failure with a personal trait, and will be able to bounce back from failure and keep working/learning. I dont want them to feel helpless and to give up I will support them by praising my kids' effort and working hard to ensure that they know that the end is not the goal, but the process. Hard work deserves the credit, not the winning I do not want them to have an inflated self esteem, which can undermine a child's motivation for improvement When parents instead praise a toddler's effort, the children are more likely to have an incremental view in elementary school 2) Authoritative Parenting: Style of parenting that tends to be demanding but also warm and responsive - they set clear standards and limits for their children, monitor their behavior, and are firm about enforcing important limits. But they allow autonomy and engage in calm conversations. They are also loving and high in affection Shows that these types of parents tend to raise kids who are competent, self-assured, and popular with peers Tend to behave in accordance with parental expectations and are low in antisocial behavior Children from authoritative families tend to be relatively high in social and academic competence, self-reliance, and coping skills and relatively low in drug use and problem behavior 3) Prosocial Behavior: Modeling/communication of values Children tend to imitate other people's helping and sharing behavior, including even that of strangers. (Especially if they have a positive relationship with the adult) Opportunities for prosocial activities: Granting participation in prosocial activities may also give children and adolescents opportunities to take others' perspectives, to increase their confidence that they are competent to assist others, and to experience emotional rewards for helping. Discipline and parenting style: High levels of prosocial behavior and sympathy in children tend to be associated with constructive and supportive parenting When parents are involved with and close to their children, the children are higher in sympathy and regulation, which in turn predicts higher levels of prosocial behavior Parental support of, and attachment to, the child have been found to be especially predictive of prosocial behavior for youths who are low in fearfulness. Parenting style that involves physical punishment, threats, and an authoritarian approach tend to be associated with a lack of sympathy and prosocial behavior in children and adolescents. Discipline with reasoning elicits prosocial behavior Especially true when reasoning points out the consequences of the child's behavior for others and encourages perspective taking -> provides guidelines children can refer to in later situations
Identify at least one factor each from your microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem and macrosystem that influenced your process of racial identity development. For two of these factors, briefly analyze whether you think this factor pushed you further "forward" or "backward" in your racial identity development, using one of the racial identity stage models discussed in class.
Microsystem: The immediate environment that an individual child personally experiences and participates in My 5th grade class was entirely white, until a guy named Will moved into town in the middle of the year. He was African American, and as he sat at my table every day, we became good friends. One time when we rode our bike to the local ice cream store, the guy at the window assumed Will did not have the money to afford anything, and expected that I was paying for him. - This was the start of disintegration, realizing that race and systematic racism was a thing Mesosystem: The interconnections among immediate, or microsystem, settings My parents valued equality and racial justice, and made sure to always support Will and invite him over. They made a point to encourage me supporting him and discussing race with him. Exosystem: Environmental settings that a child does not directly experience but that can affect the child indirectly Seeing the 2015 baltimore riots have the murder of Freddie Gray and how the rioters were portrayed by the media as thugs In contrast to 2015 Giants riots and use of word "thug" Macrosystem: The larger cultural and social context within which the other systems are embedded Affirmative Action policies - anger reintegration White Identity Development: Contact: Unaware of race Disintegration: Encountering race Reintegration: Blaming the victim Pseudo-Independent: Guilty white liberal Immersion/Emersion: Positive white identity Autonomy: Integrating whiteness into identity
In class and in the book, there are several different looking-time experiments on infant cognition. Pick one, describe what it tested, and how the results convey new information. Relate the findings to the bigger picture of what infants know about how objects behave and interact.
Object Segregation - common movement shape, color, and texture and common knowledge to help
Choose a problem that children face that interests you (e.g., poverty, low self-esteem, poor academic achievement). What have you learned in this course that could help you design an intervention or a new social policy to address this problem? Be specific, provide examples, and explicitly justify the connection between what you have learned and what you suggest the intervention should include.
Poverty and its effects on I.Q. Kids from poverty are tend to have more emotional problems, smaller vocabularies, lower IQ's, and lower math and reading scores on standardized achievement tests. Also more likely to have baby or drop out of school This makes sense considering all the disadvantages poor children face They are more likely to live in dangerous neighborhoods, to attend inferior daycare, to be exposed to higher levels of air pollution. Their parents tend to read to them less, provide fewer books, more likely to be raised by single parent Cumulative Risk: Accumulation of disadvantages over years of development Intervention to help impoverished kids academically: Project Head Start already exists Serves preschoolers Almost all children in program live below poverty line, and are subject to the cumulative risks described before Children provided with medical and dental care, nutritious meals, and a safe academic environment that focuses on and nurturer's each child's development Produces higher IQ scores at end and temporarily after, although they fall back down over time However, it leads to better social skills and health, lower frequency of being held back in school, and higher likelihood of graduation However, other projects that last multiple years as well as have low student:teacher ratios prove lasting IQ effects The Carolina Abecedarian Project
