Psy 341 quiz 1

What is the focus of behavioral geneticists?

Behavioral geneticists focus most intently on the biological bases for variation among members of a species. They often utilize twin or family studies.

How did Bandura view learning?

Bandura thought that they were internal- namely, cognitive processes.

what is cross-sectional study?

A cross-sectional design is a research design in which subjects from different age groups are studied at the same point in time.

What is a secondary circular reaction?

A pleasurable response, centered on an object external to the self, that is discovered by chance and performed over and over. According to Piaget, infants are discovering the limits and capabilities of their own bodies during the first four months and then recognizing that external objects are separate from their "physical selves" by the middle of the first year. Making a distinction between "self" and "nonself" is viewed as the first step in the development of a personal identity, or self-concept.

What are assimilation and accommodation?

Assimilation is when children interpret new experiences by incorporating them into existing schemes. For example, small children might see a horse or a zebra and say, "that's a dog!" They are fitting the new animal they see into their existing scheme (dogs) by which they understand animals. IN contracts, accommodation is the process by which children modify their existing schemes in order to incorporate or adapt to new experiences. For example, a child who has an existing scheme that tells them that dropped objects will fall would be so surprised to see a helium balloon float when someone lets go of it. If they constructed a novel understanding of what they were seeing instead of trying to fit it into existing schemes, they would be utilizing accommodation.

What did Bandura believe drives our willingness to perform certain behaviors or responses?

Bandura believed that that the main thing driving our willingness to perform certain behaviors is the consequences we anticipate for each behavior.

What are schemes? What are the different types of schemes?

Behavioral schemes, Symbolic, Operational. Piaget uses the term "schemes" to refer to intellectual structures we create to represent, organize, or interpret our experiences. BEHAVIORAL SCHEMES are organized patterns of behavior that are used to represent and respond to objects and experiences. An example of our use of behavioral schemes is the experience of starting your car and driving down the road. In this experience, your behavioral scheme dictates that you let out the clutch and, at the same time, depress the accelerator. SYMBOLIC SCHEMES are internal mental symbols (such as images or verbal codes) that one uses to represent aspects of experience. For example, if a child decides that a shoebox is their doll's crib, or plays with it as if it is a crib, the child is using a symbolic scheme. OPERATIONAL SCHEMES are Piaget's term for schemes that utilize cognitive operations, or mental "actions of the head," that enable one to transform objects of thought and to reason logically. A child who can do mental math (such as subtraction of his objects) is capable of using operational schemes.

What is conservation in the context of development?

Conservation is the recognition that the properties of an object or substance do not change when its appearance is altered in some superficial way. For example, a child with conservation would be able to discern that a broken cookie and a whole cookie are the same size.

According to Erikson, what is the main "crisis" of the first year of development?

Crisis of basic trust. Erikson believed that human beings face eight major crises, or conflicts, during the course of their lives. Each conflict has its own time for emerging, and each must be resolved successfully in order to prepare the person for a satisfactory resolution of the next life crisis. From birth to one year old, infants have the crisis of basic trust versus mistrust. Babies must learn to trust others to care for their basic needs. If caregivers are rejecting or inconsistent in their care, the infant may view the world as a dangerous place filled with untrustworthy or unreliable people. The mother or primary caregiver is a key social agent in this crisis.

What is a child's zone of proximal development, according to Vygotsky?

Describes tasks that the child can't master without the assistance and encouragement of a more skillful partner.

What do children use their capacity for observational learning for in the third year of life?

During the third year, a child's capacity for observational learning is primarily used to imitate instrumental behaviors and acquire new competencies.

What did Freud suggest about the components of personality?

Ego, Id, Superego. The id=instincts. It seeks immediate gratification of instinctual needs. The superego=moral standards. The ego is the rational component of the personality, which keeps a balance between the other two parts and seeks realistic outlets for instinctual needs.

What is egocentrism?

Egocentrism is the tendency to view the world from one's own perspective while falling to recognize that others may have different points of view. We see egocentrism in children when a child is facing you and you ask them to put something in your left hand. They will put the object in your right hand, because that is the left hand from their point of view.

What is the basic difference between the viewpoints of Freud and Erikson?

Freud viewed humans as passive creatures who are molded by their environments; Erikson viewed humans as active and adaptive. First, Erikson stressed that children are active, curious explorers who seek to adapt to their environments, rather than passive slaves to biological urges who are molded by their parents. A second important difference is that Erikson places much less emphasis on sexual urges and far more emphasis on cultural influences than Freud did.

What is the main life crisis of adolescence according to Erikson?

Identity vs role confusion. In adolescence (from 12 to 20 years of age), the main crisis is identity versus role confusion. Childhood and maturity. The adolescent grapples with the questions "Who am I?"

When should children be prepared to learn from social models?

In the second year. Between the ages of two and three, observational learning is becoming an important means by which children acquire basic personal and social competencies and gain a richer understanding of the rules and regulations they are expected to follow.

What is a tertiary circular reaction?

Infants devise new methods of acting on objects to reproduce interesting results. For example, if they throw a ball and it bounces, they might throw it over and over at different angles and observe whether or not the ball still bounces.

What is the focus of Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems model?

Influencing child development.

What did John Locke believe that the minds of newborn infants

John Lock believed that the mind of an infant is a tabula rasa, or "blank slate", that is written upon by experience. He believed that children were not inherently good or bad, and that how they will turn out should depend entirely on how they are raised.

What do most developmentalists today believe about human development?

Nature versus nurture debate. The main question is how important is biological predisposition (nature) and environmental influences (nurture) in determining human development. Today, most developmentalists believe that most of our complex human attributes are the product of an interaction between genetic factors and environmental forces.

What is the personal fable?

The personal fable is a form of adolescent egocentrism in which the individual thinks that he and his throughs and feelings are special or unique. For example, a teenager who has just broken up with their first significant other might think that no one else has experienced anything quite like his feelings at the moment.

What did B.F. Skinner believe about our behaviors?

Skinner believed the majority of influences on behaviors are external

What does the ethological perspective on human development argue?

The ethological perspective on human development emphasizes inborn, biological behaviors. Ethologists not only believe that children display a wide variety of preprogrammed behaviors, they also claim that each of these responses promotes a particular kind of experience that will help the individual to survive and develop normally. For example, the cry of a human infant is thought to be a biologically programmed "distress signal" that brings caregivers running. Ethologists believe that the first three years are the sensitive period for human social and emotional development.

dependent variable

The measurable effect, outcome, or response in which the research is interested.

What did Watson's experiment with little Albert demonstrate?

Watson's experiment with little Albert established fears are easily acquired through learning. The bell and the rat experiment.

What are the psychosexual stages?

oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency stage, genital stage From birth to one year. In the oral stage, the sex instinct centers on the mouth, as infants derive pleasure from sucking, chewing, and biting. The second stage is the anal stage from one to three years. Voluntary urination and defecation become the primary methods of gratifying the sex instinct. Toilet training produced major conflicts between children and parents. The emotional climate parents create can have lasting effects. For example, children punished for toileting accidents may become inhibited, messy or wasteful. The phallic stage from three to six years is when Freud argued that children would experience incestuous desires for the opposite-sex parent and a hostile rivalry with the same-sex parent. This is called the Oedipus complex for boys and the Electra complex for girls. In this stage, pleasure is now derived from stimulating the genitals. Anxiety stemming from this conflict causes children to internalize the sex-role characteristics and moral standards of their same-sex parental rival. The latency period from six to eleven years is the stage in which sexual urges are most likely to be repressed and sexual instincts rechanneled. Traumas of the phallic stage cause sexual conflicts to be repressed and sexual urges to rechanneled into school work and vigorous play. The ego and the superego continue to develop as the child gains more problem-solving abilities at school and internalizes societal values. The genital stage is from age twelve onward, in which puberty triggers a reawakening of sexual urges. Adolescents must now learn how to express these urges in socially acceptable ways. If development has been healthy, the mature sex instinct is satisfied by marriage and child rearing.

What are Piaget's stages of cognitive development, and what order do they occur in?

the sensorimotor stage from birth to age 2, the preoperational stage from ages 2 to 7, the concrete-operational stage from ages 7 to 11 or 12, and the formal operational stage from age 11-12 and beyond.

independent variable

variable that is manipulated