Growth and Lifespan Development

Summarize some research findings regarding the romantic relationships of young people who are sexual minorities (e.g., gay, lesbian).

Psychological researchers have recently started examining romantic relationships among young people who are sexual minorities. They have found that many youth who are sexual minorities date peers with different sexual orientations. Researchers believe this can help them identify or clarify their own sexual orientation. It can also help them learn how to hide their own sexual orientation from others. Most gay and lesbian youth have had some sexual experience with the same sex. However, this experience is often with peers who are "experimenting" with homosexuality, and who then move on to mostly heterosexual orientations. Some research, however, has also found that fewer gay teens have had same-sex romantic relationships because of social disapproval and limited opportunities. In one research study, gay and lesbian young people rated their most stressful problem as "coming out" to their parents, and rated their second most stressful problem as the possible breakup of their current romance.

Identify the four "ages" of lifespan development described by some developmental psychologists, and discuss differences among older adults.

Some developmental psychologists interested in adult development and aging (Baltes, 2006) describe lifespan development as having four ages. The first age is childhood and adolescence. The second age is "prime" adulthood, which lasts from the twenties through the fifties. The third age lasts from about age 60 to about age 79. Adults 80 or older are in their fourth age. This model's main focus is on the third and fourth ages, the times of most interest to those studying adulthood and aging. Some (Baltes and Smith, 2003) identify the "young old" as those aged 65 to 84 and the "oldest old" as those who are around the age of 85. Their category of "oldest old" is designed to mark a major change they feel occurs in older adults' lives. Scientific evidence supporting this idea is increasing. The "young old" still have the potential to maintain, improve, or attain physical and cognitive fitness, and to develop coping strategies in response to aging. However, many (but not all) of those who are 85 and older experience significant losses in physical health, become frailer, experience a decline in cognitive skills, and experience an increase in chronic stress and a decline in overall well-being.

Identify and describe the fifth of the eight developmental periods in the human lifespan.

The transition from middle and late childhood to adulthood is the developmental period of adolescence. It is the fifth of the eight developmental periods, and lasts from about age 10 to 12 to about 18 to 22. The onset of puberty marks the start of adolescence. It is characterized by rapid physiological changes, such as growth spurts, weight gains, changes in body shape, and the development of secondary sexual characteristics like breast growth, pubic and facial hair growth, and deepening of the voice. During this period, teenagers are involved in developing a sense of individual identity, and in pursuing independence. Cognitively, they are fully able for the first time to think abstractly and logically. This new understanding of abstract concepts often contributes to idealistic beliefs and attitudes, including visions for reforming society and critical attitudes about unethical or immoral adult behaviors they observe. Teens also spend more time away from their families.

Identify the general emotional and social characteristics of children raised using each of Diana Baumrind's four parenting styles.

According to Baumrind, parents with authoritarian styles, which combine high demand and control with low acceptance and responsiveness, tend to produce unhappy, fearful children who feel anxiety over comparisons with others, have weak communication skills, and do not initiate activities. Parents with neglectful styles, which employ low demand, control, acceptance, and responsiveness, tend to produce children who are immature, are socially incompetent, have difficulty coping with independence, have poor self-control, and exhibit low self-esteem. They may also be alienated from their families. As teens, they may display truant and/or delinquent behaviors. Parents with indulgent styles, which combine high acceptance and responsiveness with low demand and control, think the warmth and freedom they provide will produce confident, creative children. However, these children have problems with self-control; disrespect others; and may be egocentric, noncompliant, and domineering. They may also have difficulty with peer interactions. Authoritative parents, who combine high acceptance, responsiveness, demand, and control, tend to produce children who are self-reliant, self-controlled, cheerful, and achievement-oriented. They usually get along well with peers and adults, and cope well with stress.

Summarize Urie Bronfenbrenner's developmental psychology theory known as the ecological systems theory. Include a discussion of its system components and how it has influenced developmental research.

According to Bronfenbrenner, human development is shaped by rules, roles, and norms contained within four types of systems. The microsystem represents systems in the individual's immediate environment, like the family, the classroom, etc. The mesosystem represents the interaction between two microsystems, such as the interaction between a child's home and school. The exosystem represents a system external to the child's environment that affects the child despite its indirect involvement in the child's life. An example is the workplace of the child's parent(s). The macrosystem represents the larger cultural context within which the other systems exist. The chronosystem represents the time element of environmental events, life transitions, and sociohistorical circumstances. Bronfenbrenner stated that as children develop, their interactions within environmental systems increase in complexity commensurately with the maturation of their physical and cognitive abilities. Bronfenbrenner influenced child development researchers by directing their attention to the investigation of the family, the economy, and political factors as influences on the growth and development of children.

Discuss the concept of anal retention/expulsion as it relates to Freud's theory of psychosexual development, and include an example.

According to Freud, a specific body area is the focus of erotic pleasure during each psychosexual stage of development, and each stage features a conflict that must be resolved. When some aspect of that conflict is not successfully resolved, the person can become fixated on that stage. As an adult, that person will display behaviors related to the corresponding erogenous zone. Toddlers are in the anal stage of development, when toilet training is the most important activity. They must resolve the conflict between responding to anal stimulation to expel feces and learning to control their bowel movements. A less than ideal resolution of this conflict can result in fixation. At one extreme, if the person overreacts to pressure to control the bowels, the individual will develop an "anal retentive" personality. This type of person is often obsessed with cleanliness, neatness, order, perfectionism, rigidity, and excessive control. At the other extreme, if the child rebelled against toilet training, he or she may develop an "anal expulsive" personality. These people are typically sloppy, messy, disorganized, lacking in self-control, and defiant.

Explain the characteristics of egocentrism, animism, and intuitive thinking as they relate to the preoperational stage of Piaget's theory of cognitive development, and include some examples.

According to Piaget, children in the second, preoperational, stage are egocentric, meaning they cannot see things from another's perspective. For example, a four-year-old girl answering the phone might silently nod instead of saying "yes" aloud because she does not realize the person on the other end cannot see her nod. In Piaget and Inhelder's "three mountains" task, children walked around models of mountains to see how they looked from different viewpoints. Then, they were asked to identify photos showing how they looked from the viewpoint of a doll placed in different locations. Preoperational children tended to identify their own view, not the doll's view. Animism is assigning human qualities to inanimate objects, and is typical at the preoperational stage. For example, a child might say, "The sidewalk made me fall down and got me mad." Children also exhibit intuitive thinking at this stage. Children know they know things, but don't know how they know them. Their knowledge is not arrived at through logical thought, so it may be incorrect.

Describe how behavioral theory relates to human growth and development. Summarize the key concepts of Skinner's behavioral theory known as operant conditioning.

According to behaviorism, the only things we can study scientifically are observable, measurable behaviors. Behaviorism does not deny the existence of inner states, such as emotions or thoughts. It simply does not deal with them, because anything that cannot be observed cannot be measured, and if it cannot be seen and quantified, it therefore cannot be changed, which is the goal of behavior modification. Behaviorism holds that observable behaviors are learned through experience and interactions with the environment. While stage theories like Freud's, Erikson's, and Piaget's are discontinuous in that they represent development in discrete stages, behaviorism, like Vygotsky's sociocultural cognitive theory, represents development as continuous. Skinner's operant conditioning theory is the most prominent of the behavioral theories, and serves as the basis for all others. Skinner found that an individual is more likely to repeat a behavior that is rewarded (reinforced) and less likely to repeat a behavior that is punished or ignored.

Discuss some aspects of the retirement/senior phase of the family life cycle, including benefits, challenges, and specific goals.

According to family life cycle theory, seniors often enjoy freedom from the responsibilities of parenting and careers that allows them to explore personal interests. They also experience family changes as their children marry, make them grandparents, and/or divorce. Some retirees focusing on sustaining their spousal relationship and exploring their own interests are also still caring for aged parents. Deaths of spouses and/or other family members, declining physical and/or mental health, and changes in financial or social status are additional challenges of the senior phase. Family life cycle theory finds that how well we adjusted to changes in earlier phases determines our quality of life in this phase. Specific goals of this stage are: maintaining your and your partner's physical functions and interests, exploring new familial and social roles, emotionally supporting adult children and extended family, including older adults' experience and wisdom in the family system, supporting older generations without overextending oneself, coping with others' deaths, preparing for one's own death, and reviewing and reflecting on one's life.

Identify the major goal of the coupling/marriage stage of the family life cycle, according to family life cycle theory. Discuss a prerequisite for this stage, applications, life skills learned, challenges, and specific goals.

According to family life cycle theory, the major goal of the coupling/marriage stage is to achieve interdependence. The prerequisite for this is the achievement of independence during the previous stage. Interdependence is characterized by fully participating in a relationship, sharing goals, and sometimes deferring your needs in favor of your partner's needs. The life skills we learn in the coupling phase provide a basis for parent-child, teacher-student, physician-patient, and other relationships. We learn skills related to problem solving, advanced interpersonal communication, forming boundaries in relationships, and sharing goals for emotional and spiritual development. We also learn when to put our partner's needs first. This stage includes challenges, such as making the transition to a new family system, including our partners in our relationships with friends and family members, prioritizing another's needs, and committing to making the marriage or union work. The more specific goals of the coupling stage are to realign our relationships with our family of origin and our friends to include our partner, and to create a new family with our partner.

Discuss some aspects of the phase of parenting adolescents, according to family life cycle theory.

Adolescence challenges parents' relationship skills, but also affords creative exploration and positive growth for all family members. The most successful families with adolescents have developed strong and flexible relationships through learning good skills related to trust, support, mutual care, communication, and problem solving. Teens seek to separate from the family and become independent, yet still need support. Parents' strengths as individuals and as a couple are crucial. Parents need to be flexible, setting boundaries and limits for teens while also encouraging exploration. A primary challenge for parents is developing adult relationships with their children. Well-developed individual identities in parents equip them to cope with the challenges of adolescents' experiments and changes. Parents without strong individual identities will feel threatened. Late in this stage, parental focus shifts from helping teens mature to career and relationship issues. This transition is less problematic if parents nurture, not neglect, their individual development and relationship. At this stage, parents also begin to consider caring for their own aging parents.

Describe some of the major aspects of development during the coupling stage of the family life cycle, according to family life cycle theory.

After attaining independence in the first (teen-young adult) stage, we explore our ability to commit to a new family and lifestyle in the coupling stage. In addition to the adaptations and relationship building skills learned in the independence stage, marriages or committed civil unions usually demand other unique skills. Our experiences and relationships in our original families influence our contributions to the new family systems we form, which incorporate our personal values, expectations, and beliefs. In a marriage or union, we combine our family system with our partner's family system. This requires both partners to reshape their goals. A characteristic of the most effective relationships is the ability of the partners to take their two viewpoints and create a third choice that neither had previously considered. Instead of sacrificing something, which is a requirement of compromises, the couple generates an additional, better alternative. When we become part of a couple, we often find that some of our earlier expectations were unrealistic. We may need to adjust our expectations regarding finances, in-law relationships, recreational pursuits, sexuality, friendships, and placing another's needs before our own.

Describe how Jean Piaget conceptualized the moral development of children.

After formulating his theory of cognitive development, Piaget observed and interviewed children regarding rules and ethics. He proposed that children go through two stages of moral reasoning, and a third, transitional period in between. From about age four to seven, Piaget said children are in the first stage of moral development: heteronomous morality. They view rules, justice, and right and wrong as fixed characteristics of the environment that people cannot control. They view the consequences of actions as more important than the actor's intentions when determining right and wrong. They believe in "immanent justice," which is the concept that punishment inevitably and immediately follows wrongdoing. Piaget said that between the ages of 7 to 10, children are transitioning between the two moral stages. From around age 10 on, Piaget found that children demonstrate autonomous morality. They realize that rules and laws are made by people, not omnipotent authorities, and as such are subject to change. When considering people's actions, they find their intentions more important than the consequences.

Summarize some key aspects of Bandura's social-cognitive theory of development.

Albert Bandura combines behavioral, cognitive, and social factors in his theory. He agrees with behavioral theorists that development involves the acquisition of learned behaviors that are strongly influenced by interactions with the environment. He agrees with Piaget that cognition is also a significant factor in understanding development. In this respect, his theory contradicts behavioral theory. Like Vygotsky and Bronfenbrenner, he emphasizes social influences on learning. Bandura found that people learn not only through direct experiences, but also through observation. His experiments proved that children who observed violent behavior by other people, both in vivo and in video recordings, would imitate it and behave more aggressively. He also found that those observing another person being rewarded or punished for a behavior would commit or avoid the same behavior accordingly. Bandura recently created a model of learning and development consisting of three components: behavior, person/cognition, and environment. Personal characteristics such as self-efficacy and cognitive processes such as strategies are represented by person/cognition. Interactions among components are reciprocal.

Describe Abraham Maslow's focus on healthy vs. morbid personalities. Describe some personal qualities and famous individuals Maslow associated with self-actualization.

As a humanistic psychologist, Maslow found Freudian and neo-Freudian theories too focused on unhealthy personalities and mental disorders. His approach was more positive and optimistic. He believed that mental health should not be described simply as the lack of illness. He was known for his work in identifying the aspects of the healthy personality. He discovered these aspects by studying well-known people who had lived particularly full, productive lives. Maslow placed self-actualization (completely fulfilling one's potential) at the top of his hierarchy of needs pyramid. He found that self-actualizing people with healthy personalities not only fulfilled their own abilities, but also focused on goals beyond their own basic needs. They usually supported and participated in causes about which they cared deeply. Maslow described such persons as creative, good-humored, spontaneous, and accepting of their own and others' limitations. He found they often had "peak experiences." He identified Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, Albert Schweitzer, and Eleanor Roosevelt as self-actualizing persons.

Identify the four parenting styles proposed by Diana Baumrind, and outline the associated dimensions and the degrees, or extremes, of the dimensions associated with each style.

Baumrind described authoritarian parents as restrictive, directive, and punitive. They rigidly enforce but do not explain rules, and regularly express anger. In the dimension of acceptance and responsiveness, they are rejecting and unresponsive; in the dimension of demand and control, they are demanding and controlling. At the other extreme, indulgent parents are accepting and responsive, and undemanding and uncontrolling. They are warm and involved, but permissive. Neglectful parents are rejecting and unresponsive, and undemanding and uncontrolling. They are not strict, but are not involved either, paying insufficient attention to their children and giving them the feeling they are not as important as other parts of their parents' lives. Authoritative parenting is Baumrind's ideal style. These parents are accepting and responsive toward their children. They are also demanding and controlling in that they do set limits on their children's behavior. They are warm and nurturing, and allow much give-and-take discussion with children, encouraging and expecting independence and age-appropriate behavior from them.

Discuss the relationship between biological, cognitive, and socioemotional processes in human development, and include an example.

Biological processes, or changes in our physiology; cognitive processes, or changes in our intellect, language, and thinking; and socioemotional processes, or changes in our feelings, personalities, and social relationships all interact reciprocally with one another. As such, they are intertwined and cannot be separated. For example, when a parent touches an infant and the baby smiles in response, all of these processes are involved. The physical property of touch and response to touch are the result of biological processes. The ability to understand intentional behavior, which allows the baby to recognize the parent's intention to interact, involves cognitive processes. The baby's smile reflects a positive emotional response. In addition, the act of smiling facilitates positive connections with other humans, so the baby's smile in response to the parent's touch is the result of socioemotional processes. Also, these processes often interact bidirectionally. For example, biological processes can affect cognitive processes, and vice versa.

Summarize the principles of John Bowlby's theory of attachment in babies and children.

Bowlby viewed development from an ethological perspective (1969 and 1989). He believed that both infants and parents are biologically predisposed to form attachments, and that newborns evoke attachment behaviors in parents by their early behaviors of crying, cooing, clinging, and smiling. These and their later behaviors of crawling, walking, and following the parent accomplish the short-term effect of keeping the caregiver near, and increase the baby's chance of survival over the long-term. Bowlby's concept of attachment develops in phases (adapted by Schaffer, 1996). Phase 1 lasts from birth to two months. Infants instinctually smile and cry to indiscriminately attract attention from all humans. Phase 2 lasts from two to seven months. In this phase, babies develop an attachment to the main caregiver. Phase 3 lasts from 7 to 24 months. With improving locomotor skills that allow them to actively seek out contact, babies develop specific attachments to mothers and/or fathers. Phase 4 lasts from 24 months on. At this point, children develop awareness of others' emotions, plans, and goals, and begin to consider these when deciding on their own actions.

Identify some of the physiological and psychological stressors parents in the "empty nest"/launching adult children phase of the family life cycle commonly experience, and outline the specific goals of this stage.

By the time their children have grown up and are leaving home, most parents are in middle age. At this time in the family life cycle, middle-aged adults' energy levels decline. Chronic illnesses are diagnosed in some adults, and midlife health issues develop. These include such things as weight problems, high blood pressure, arthritis, menopause, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, stress-related illnesses, and depression. In addition to health problems associated with aging, many middle-aged adults are caring for their own aged parents. This is a source of additional physical and psychological stress, which can have an impact on the health of adult caregivers. Specific goals of the launching phase of the family life cycle are to refocus on the couple's relationship without children; to develop adult relationships with their grown children; and, when their grown children start their own families, to realign their relationships to include new in-laws and grandchildren.

Summarize Carol Gilligan's argument about gender differences related to Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development, and discuss other researchers' findings regarding her argument.

Carol Gilligan perceived a gender bias in Kohlberg's theory. Kohlberg was male, did research with mostly males, and used males' responses as the model for his theory. Therefore, the basis for this theory was a male norm. Gilligan said that the average male views abstract principles and independent moral decisions as more important than relationships and caring for others. Gilligan defined Kohlberg's theory as having a "justice perspective," and argued that women have a "care perspective," seeing morality in terms of interpersonal connections, communication, relationships, and concern for others. Gilligan's own research supported her arguments. However, a statistical meta-analysis of many studies found only small gender differences in care-oriented moral reasoning among adolescents. These differences were even smaller in adults. This meta-analysis found that the nature of a given situation explained differences in moral reasoning better than gender. Men and women both tended to use care perspectives in interpersonal situations and justice perspectives in societal ones. Other studies found that altruistic, helping, and prosocial behavior is more important to females. Additional research found girls used more care reasoning to resolve dating dilemmas than boys.

Define and discuss biological, cognitive, and socioemotional processes as parts of lifespan development.

Development, or patterns of change throughout life, is complex. It is the result of biological, cognitive, and socioemotional processes. Biological processes effect physiological changes in a person. Genes we inherit from our parents, increases in weight and height, the brain's development, the development of motor skills, hormonal changes during puberty, and cardiovascular decline with aging are all biological processes that influence development. Cognitive processes are changes in our intelligence, language, and thinking. Cognitive processes are involved when a baby watches a mobile above his or her crib, when a toddler composes a two-word sentence, when an older child memorizes a poem, when a teen imagines what it would be like to be a movie star, and when an adult solves a crossword puzzle. Socioemotional processes are changes in our emotions, our personalities, and our interactions and relationships with other people. They include an infant smiling at a parent, a toddler's aggression against a playmate, a school-aged child's development of self-assertiveness, a teen's excitement about the prom, and the affection between elderly spouses.

Explain how developmental psychologists describe the family, and include an overview of reciprocal influences and direct and indirect effects.

Developmental psychologists regard the family as a complex, whole entity that is composed of subsystems within the family system. The members or parts making up each subsystem are interrelated and interact with one another. Each member of a family interacts within several of these subsystems. For example, one subsystem is made up of the mother and child; another is represented by the father and child; and the mother, father, and child together make up yet another subsystem. In families with more than one child, each relationship between two siblings constitutes a subsystem, each relationship among more than two siblings is another subsystem, etc. Family members and subsystems influence one another reciprocally. For example, an infant's development and behavior, the parenting of the mother and father, and the parents' marital relations can all affect each other—both directly and indirectly. The parents' behavior has a direct effect on the child. The parents' marital relationship has an indirect effect on the child.

Identify five types of peer status children experience according to developmental psychologists, and describe the characteristics of each.

Developmental psychologists routinely study sociometric status, which is how much a child is liked or disliked by his or her peer group. Developmental psychologists typically evaluate this status either by asking children how much they like or dislike each of their classmates, or by asking them to nominate the classmates they like and dislike the most. Psychologists have identified five basic types of peer status. "Popular" children are seldom disliked by peers, and are often nominated as best friends by classmates. "Average" children are disliked and liked by an average number of their peers, and receive an average number of positive and negative nominations from their peers. "Neglected" children are seldom nominated as best friends, but are not actively disliked by peers either. They are more ignored by others rather than considered friends or enemies. "Rejected" children, like neglected children, are infrequently nominated as best friends. Unlike neglected children, however, they are actively disliked by peers. "Controversial" children receive frequent nominations both as best friends and as people who are disliked.

Discuss the first four stages of psychosocial development in Erikson's theory. Provide the names of the stages, the ages at which they occur, important events, and the results of successful and unsuccessful conflict resolution.

Erikson's stage names identify the nuclear conflict that must be resolved in each stage. Spanning the time from birth to 18 months, Erikson's stage of basic trust vs. mistrust involves nursing. If the infant is fed in a timely and consistent manner, he or she will develop trust in the world. If feeding is insufficient, excessive, or inconsistent, mistrust of the environment is the result. In early childhood, the stage of autonomy vs. shame and self-doubt involves toilet training. If the child develops feelings of control over his or her physical abilities, independence and autonomy result. If not, feelings of shame and self-doubt result. Preschoolers are in the stage of initiative vs. guilt. The important event during this stage is exploration of the environment. When children successfully exert appropriate power to control their environments, they develop a sense of purpose and initiative. If they exercise too much power, they encounter disapproval, resulting in feelings of guilt. School-aged children are in the stage of industry vs. inferiority. If they succeed in addressing new social and academic requirements, they develop feelings of competence; failure results in feelings of inferiority.

Identify the three major personality traits in Hans Eysenck's trait model of personality, and outline the narrower traits included under each major trait.

Eysenck divided the human personality into a hierarchy consisting of three major types of traits: psychoticism, neuroticism (vs. emotional stability), and extraversion-introversion. Under the psychoticism trait he included the narrower traits of aggression, coldness, egocentrism, being impersonal, impulsivity, being antisocial, lack of empathy, creativity, and tough-mindedness. Under the neuroticism trait he included the narrower traits of anxiety, depression, guilt feelings, low self-esteem, tension, irrationality, shyness, moodiness, and emotionality. Under the extraversion-introversion trait he included the more specific traits associated with extraversion of sociability, liveliness, being active, assertiveness, sensation-seeking, being carefree, dominance, surgency, and being venturesome. He also included the more specific traits associated with introversion of seeming aloof or distant, being quieter, preferring a more moderate pace, passivity, less tolerance for sensory stimulation, conscientiousness, seriousness, organization, and risk aversion.

Discuss the concept of the Electra complex as it relates to Freud's theory of psychosexual development, and identify some examples of associated behaviors often observed by parents.

Freud proposed that boys experience the Oedipus complex during the phallic stage of psychosexual development. According to Freud, boys at this stage unconsciously want to have sex with their mothers and kill their fathers to eliminate the competition. He named the complex after the Greek character Oedipus, who unwittingly murdered his father and married his mother. When neo-Freudian psychoanalyst Carl Jung proposed an Electra complex—named after the Greek character Electra, who plotted with her brother to kill their mother and stepfather for killing their father—as the female counterpart to the Oedipus complex, Freud disagreed strongly. He referred to the "feminine Oedipus attitude" and the "negative Oedipus complex," but insisted that male and female sexuality were too different for Jung's term to be accurate. Nevertheless, parents are familiar with their daughters preferring Daddy over Mommy between the ages of three and six. Like boys, they also subsequently "identify with the aggressor" by imitating Mother and displaying more feminine behaviors.

Discuss the concept of oral fixation as it relates to Freud's theory of psychosexual development, and include an example

Freud proposed that development occurs in stages related to the child's primary focus of sexual and psychic energy at various ages. He viewed each developmental stage as involving, among other things, the resolution of a conflict. Freud said that if a child did not successfully resolve a conflict in one stage, the child could become fixated at that point. If the child remained fixated until adulthood, he or she would display behaviors characteristic of that stage's focus. For example, Freud's first stage of psychosexual development is the oral stage, when nursing is the infant's most significant activity and the focus of erogenous pleasure. If a baby's oral needs are gratified too much or not enough, the individual can develop oral fixation. As an adult, this individual will exhibit excessive oral behaviors, such as overeating, drinking too much, nail-biting, etc. Oral personality characteristics include excessive dependence on others; gullibility; and always following, never leading. Those who resist their oral impulses may display aggression and have a pessimistic attitude toward others.

Define ego defense mechanisms as they relate to Freudian theory. Identify and describe several of these mechanisms using examples.

Freud proposed that to resolve psychic conflicts between the id's desire to express its impulses and the superego's desire to deny them, the ego acts as a mediator and creates defense mechanisms to reduce anxiety, and to maintain a positive self-image and socially acceptable behavior. By using the defense mechanism of denial, people protect themselves from unpleasant realities by denying that they exist. This is common among substance abusers, child abusers, people with anger management issues, and those who engage in high-risk behaviors. Another defense mechanism is displacement. People release bottled-up feelings—usually of anger—onto recipients less threatening than those who caused the feelings. For example, when a man's boss yells at him, yelling back would get the man fired, so he goes home and yells at his wife instead. In the defense mechanism of fantasy, people seek gratification for desires that are thwarted in reality through imaginary scenarios. An example is daydreaming about getting revenge on someone, winning the love of someone unattainable, or being rich, famous, or extremely successful.

Identify and explain several ego defense mechanisms described in Freudian psychoanalytic theory using examples.

Freud said that our egos create defense mechanisms to manage anxiety from inner conflicts. One of these defense mechanics is reaction formation: to keep threatening impulses from being expressed, people "form reactions," espousing opposite attitudes and behaviors as protective barriers. Both children and adults who are attracted to someone but cannot accept the sexual tension may make a great show of their contempt or hatred for the secretly desired other. In regression, an individual reverts to an earlier developmental stage. A four-year-old whose parents have a new baby may regress to more babyish behaviors to compete for parental attention. People may also regress to lower others' demands or expectations. The most basic ego defense mechanism is repression: a person pushes threatening or painful thoughts, feelings, and memories out of the consciousness and into the unconscious. Freud believed children repress sexual and aggressive impulses toward their parents. A spouse unhappy in a marriage may "forget" their anniversary. Sublimation is channeling sexual or aggressive impulses into socially acceptable activities. Examples are architects or builders who "erect" skyscrapers and individuals who release aggression by becoming professional boxers.

Describe Freud's theory of lifespan development, identifying stage names and characteristics.

Freud's psychosexual theory of development is a discontinuous, or stage, theory, meaning it does not depict a gradual, inseparable process of change, but discrete developmental stages instead. Freud focused on sexuality and early parent-child interactions as influences on development. Each stage is characterized by an erogenous zone that is the child's main focus. Infants are in the oral stage, focused on the mouth when nursing is most important. Toddlers are in the anal stage, focused on the bowels when toilet training is most important. When young children discover their genitals, they enter the phallic stage. Around school age, children focus on new academic and social activities. Freud called this the latency stage. During this stage, sexual urges become latent as the child focuses on learning and making friends. With the advent of puberty, sexual desires return to the forefront in the genital stage. Freud believed that the individual's personality was basically developed by adolescence, and did not identify any stages beyond the genital stage.

Summarize the history of the development of the five-factor taxonomy of personality traits.

Gordon Allport and H.S. Odbert began a lexical approach to personality research in the 1930s, identifying thousands of terms for personality traits found in the dictionary. Raymond Cattell used their list for additional lexical analysis. Computer technology was too limited in the 1940s for Cattell to conduct factor analysis on so many items, so he created a smaller list of trait clusters or groups. Fiske made a factor analysis of most (22 of 35) of Cattell's clusters, and was the first to create a five-factor model in 1949. Tupes and Christal then identified the five factors in 1961 as surgency (extraversion), agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and culture. Their structure was replicated by Norman in 1963, and then by many other researchers in the 1980s and 1990s, including McCrae and Costa. Research on the "big five" has proliferated over the last 20 years. McCrae and Costa designed the most widely-used test for the big five traits: the Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness Personality Inventory, Revised (NEO-PI-R, 1989).

Summarize Harry Harlow's experiment with monkeys and surrogate "mothers," and identify the landmark discovery about infant attachment he made during this study.

Harry Harlow (1958) separated monkeys from their mothers at birth and gave them one of two types of surrogate "mothers." One type was made of soft cloth and the other type was made of hard wire. He had half of the monkeys fed by the wire "mother" and half by the cloth one. Outside of feedings, data on how much time the baby monkeys spent with each "mother" were collected and recorded. Regardless of which "mother" fed them, all of the monkeys spent more time with the cloth "mother." Those "raised" by the cloth "mother" also ran and clung to the cloth "mother" when frightened, while those "raised" by the wire "mother" did not. Harlow found that the infant monkeys associated a substitute "mother" with security if they felt it gave tactile physical comfort. Harlow's landmark discovery was that the attachment process does not depend only upon being fed, but also the comfort received through physical contact.

Describe the six stages in Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning.

In Kohlberg's preconventional level of moral reasoning, stage 1 is called heteronomous morality. This stage is also identified in Piaget's theory of moral development in children. At this point, children's morality is not internalized, but is related to external consequences. Bad behavior is punished and good behavior is rewarded. This shapes the child's concept of good and bad, right and wrong. Stage 2 is individualism, purpose, and exchange. In this stage, people follow their own interests and let others do the same. People at this level view equal exchanges as good and right. Part of Kohlberg's conventional level, during which the internalization of morality is in an intermediate stage, stage 3 is mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, and interpersonal conformity. Trust, loyalty, and care for others are valued as foundations for moral judgments. In Stage 4, social system morality, individuals base moral judgments on their understanding of the social system, justice, laws, and duty. Part of Kohlberg's postconventional level, at which point moral standards have become fully internalized, stage 5 is social contract or utility and individual rights. Individuals perceive that laws are underpinned and/or transcended by values, principles, and rights. At Stage 6, universal ethical principles, individuals base moral judgments on universal human rights, following their individual consciences to resolve conflicts with laws.

Name and summarize the features of each developmental stage in Piaget's theory of cognitive development.

In Piaget's first, sensorimotor, stage of cognitive development, babies respond to sensory information they receive from the environment with motor activities. They repeat the motions they observe; Piaget termed these repetitions circular reactions. The second, preoperational, stage lasts from about age two to seven. Children begin to represent the environment using symbols like words and pictures. They form stable concepts and start reasoning. However, they cannot yet perform mental operations, Piaget's term for reversible mental actions. They cannot take another's perspective, an inability Piaget called egocentrism. In the third stage of concrete operations, which lasts from about age 7 to 11, children begin to perform and reverse mental operations, but only with concrete objects they can see and manipulate. They start to understand conservation. They also begin to comprehend certain concepts, such as that the number and amount of something remains the same despite changes in distribution and shape. At this point, however, they can only understand such concepts when they involve concrete things. They cannot yet think abstractly. In the stage of formal operations, which begins during pre-adolescence and adolescence, abstract thought develops. This allows children to understand higher mathematics, philosophy, and abstract concepts like justice.

Describe the last three of the six substages in the sensorimotor stage of Piaget's cognitive developmental theory, and include some examples.

In Piaget's sensorimotor substage of (4) coordination of secondary circular reactions, which occurs between the ages of about 8 and 12 months, infants develop eye-hand coordination and intentionality, combining and coordinating existing schemes (concepts). They can simultaneously look at and grasp an object. Their actions become more outwardly directed, and they perform actions for specific purposes. For example, they might manipulate a stick to pull a toy within reach. In the substage of (5) tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity, children between the ages of 12 and 18 months old develop curiosity about the characteristics of objects and the things they can do with them, such as making them fall, spin, collide with other objects, roll, bounce, and slide. Tertiary circular reactions are schemes for purposefully exploring new actions to perform with objects and their results. In (6) internalization of schemes, which occurs between the ages of about 18 and 24 months, children begin using primitive symbols to represent concrete events. For example, Piaget observed his daughter watching a matchbox being opened and closed. She later imitated this by opening and closing her mouth, showing she had internalized this event.

Summarize some key aspects of Abraham Maslow's humanistic theory of personality.

In contrast to Freudian/neo-Freudian's focus on pathology, Maslow's theory is more optimistic. He saw the personality as driven not by inner conflicts and defense mechanisms against anxiety as Freud did, but by the need to learn, adapt, grow, and succeed. Maslow emphasized positive motivations of love, self-esteem, and self-actualization (realizing one's full potential in life). Humanistic psychologists believe mental disorders are caused by unhealthy situations rather than unhealthy people. Maslow created a hierarchy of needs, which he represented graphically using a pyramid. He believed the lowest level of needs are related to survival, and are physiological. These needs include air, sleep, water, food, and sex. The next level is safety needs, such as having shelter and being secure from danger; and building a structured, orderly, predictable life. Above safety are belonging needs—the need to belong to families, social groups, etc. Above this level are esteem needs—we rely on ourselves and others to meet these needs. At the top of the pyramid is self-actualization.

Cite some cultural differences in various parts of the world related to the roles of adolescents.

In cross-cultural comparisons of adolescents, researchers noted numerous variations in customs and traditions related to adolescence. These variations were noted in 2002. In India, two-thirds of teenagers consented to arranged marriages chosen by their parents. In the Philippines, many teenage girls moved to the city to get jobs and send the money they earned home to their families, giving up their own futures. Many adolescents in Middle Eastern countries were prohibited from interacting with the opposite sex, even in school. In many developing nations, including Kenya, "street" youth have learned to survive in extremely stressful life circumstances. Some have even been abandoned by their parents. They may engage in prostitution and/or delinquent activities to provide for themselves financially. Researchers also found that while people have been marrying at later ages than previous generations in the United States, youth in Russia have been marrying at earlier ages to engage in socially acceptable sexual activity.

Discuss some key aspects of the parenting phase of the family life cycle related to parenting young children, including role changes, prerequisite skills, and specific goals.

In family life cycle theory, parenting young children involves incorporating them into other relationships as a key emotional aspect. Members of couples transition to being parents. While they are still developing as individuals, they are concurrently becoming decision makers for their family. Strong marriages result when each partner continues to express his or her individuality, while also working together well as a couple. Strong relationships between parents benefit the child, whose healthy development relies on his or her parents providing a safe, loving, and organized environment. Because caring for young children greatly reduces a couple's "alone time," having learned life skills like compromising for the family's welfare in earlier phases is important to the success of the relationship. When parents of young children have not previously mastered these skills, extramarital affairs and divorces are common. Specific goals of this stage are adjusting the marital system to include children, assuming parental roles, and realigning extended family relationships to include grandparenting and parenting roles.

Name some risk factors related to the domain of the community that threaten normal child development, and identify some corresponding resilience factors that can offset the associated negative outcomes.

In the community, forms of media such as television constitute a risk factor because they can influence children's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Some of these negative influences on children include habituating them to reports of crime; exposing them to video violence, which promotes aggressive behaviors; and providing unrealistic and/or unhealthy role models. Recreational activities can be risk factors when they are not monitored or supervised, and are dangerous and/or unhealthy. They can also detract from or interfere with academic progress if they are indulged in excessively. Disorganized neighborhoods, drugs, and firearms are additional risk factors. Resilience factors include monitoring children and teens, teaching them how to reflect on their own and others' attitudes and behaviors, creating after-school programs that provide opportunities to participate in positive leisure activities, providing access to community mentors and mentoring programs, establishing links between the community and the school, and providing community drug prevention programs for youth and adults.

Identify and describe the last three of the eight developmental periods in the human lifespan.

In the developmental period of early adulthood, which lasts from the twenties to about age 40, people focus on establishing their personal and economic independence, on career development, on forming intimate relationships, and on starting families. In the period of middle adulthood, which lasts from about age 40 to 60, people focus on expanding their personal and social responsibility and involvement. They engage in activities to help the next generation grow and develop into mature, competent persons. Middle adults also typically concentrate on attaining and sustaining career satisfaction. In the period of late adulthood, which begins in the sixties or seventies and continues until death, people engage in life reviews, looking back on the course of their lives, determining what they accomplished and did not accomplish, and taking stock of their satisfactions and regrets. They retire from their jobs, and must adjust to new social roles. These roles are also changed by declining strength and health. Currently, late adulthood lasts longer than any other developmental period.

Identify a number of risk factors related to the domain of the family that affect development, and outline corresponding factors of resilience that can counter these risk factors.

In the family domain, a significant risk factor that adversely affects child development is poor parenting skills. These manifest in child neglect, child abuse, harsh treatment, rejection, parental substance abuse, and parental crime. Prenatal parental training is a resilience factor that can mitigate the risk factor of poor parenting skills by teaching parenting skills to couples or individuals before the child's birth. This training helps parents learn how to produce and raise healthier children. Risk factors in the child include malnutrition, aggression, and emotional problems. Resilience factors to counter the negative outcomes of these conditions include teaching the child self-care skills, skills to promote and maintain their health, and emotional coping strategies. Another significant family risk factor is poverty. Researchers have found this factor is the most predictive of behavioral problems and school failure. Resilience factors to combat poverty include helping families access needed medical, social, and employment services; and teaching children's educators about poverty.

Describe the first three of the six substages in the sensorimotor stage of Piaget's cognitive developmental theory, and include some examples.

Infants in the sensorimotor stage of cognitive development first go through the substage of (1) simple reflexes, which involves reflexive behaviors like rooting and sucking. In (2) first habits and primary circular reactions, which occurs between the ages of about one and four months, babies develop "habits." These are schemes based on reflexes that are detached from their stimuli, such as sucking even without the stimulation of a nipple. Primary circular reactions are schemes for trying to recreate an event that first happened accidentally. If an infant happened to suck his fingers when they were near his mouth, he looks for them to suck them again. In (3) secondary circular reactions, which occurs between the ages of about four and eight months, infants move from self-orientation to object-orientation. Schemes are not goal-directed or purposeful, but rather repeated or imitated due to reinforcing consequences, like the sound from shaking a rattle.

Summarize James Marcia's theory of identity. Identify his primary influence, the two components of identity development that determine identity status, and the four identity statuses he proposed.

James Marcia based his theory of identity on Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial development. Erikson's developmental stage of identity vs. role confusion is associated with adolescence. Marcia identified four ways of resolving the identity crisis associated with this stage, which he called identity statuses. Marcia proposed that these statuses are determined by the presence, absence, or degree of crisis and/or commitment. He defines "crisis" as a period during identity development when the individual is exploring alternatives. He defines "commitment" as making a personal investment in an identity. Marcia's first identity status is identity diffusion, meaning individuals have experienced neither crisis nor commitment. They are undecided and usually uninterested in identity. The second identity status is identity foreclosure. Individuals have made a commitment, but have not encountered a crisis. Teens whose parents have imposed commitments on them before they could explore alternatives on their own are often in identity foreclosure. The third is identity moratorium. Individuals are in a crisis but have vague or no commitments. The fourth is identity achievement. Individuals have experienced a crisis and made a commitment.

Summarize some of the important basic concepts that are part of Piaget's theory of cognitive development.

Jean Piaget, who had a background in botany, conducted detailed naturalistic observations of babies and young children to discover how they learned about their environments. By observing their behaviors, Piaget theorized that children are like "little scientists" who learn by constantly "experimenting" with and on the environment. Piaget used the term schema (plural schemata) to describe the mental constructs we form about things in the environment and our experiences with them. He found that like other organisms, humans need to maintain equilibrium or balance by adapting to their environment. Piaget explained that the adaptation process consists of assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is fitting a new object or experience into an existing schema. For example, a baby forms a schema for "things I suck." Initially, this includes "nipple," "pacifier," and "my thumb." Then, "the table leg" or "Daddy's knee" might be assimilated into this schema. Accommodation is creating a new schema for something that cannot be assimilated into an existing one.

Identify and describe the three main levels of thinking in Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning.

Kohlberg based his theory of moral reasoning on Piaget's theory of cognitive development. His theory includes the concept that opportunities to assume others' perspectives and conflicts between one's present level of moral reasoning and someone else's higher level promote advancement to each successive level and stage. Kohlberg's first and lowest level of moral reasoning is the preconventional level. At this level, morality is not internalized. Children view good and bad only as the sources of extrinsic rewards and punishments. Level 2 is the conventional level, during which the internalization of morality is in an intermediate stage. For instance, children and teens apply moral standards, but they are provided by others (parents, the government, etc.). Level 3 in Kohlberg's theory is the postconventional level of moral reasoning. At this point, moral standards have become fully internalized. Individuals at this highest level can identify various alternatives among moral choices, explore them, and then choose their own personal set of moral beliefs, known as a moral code.

Identify the approximate ages that Lawrence Kohlberg associated with the levels and stages he proposed in his theory of moral reasoning. State what some other researchers have found regarding the connection between age and Kohlberg's proposed stages.

Kohlberg found that most children were in his first, preconventional stage of moral reasoning before the age of nine. He found that most progressed to his second, conventional level by early adolescence. Most adolescents were at stage 3 of level 2, but some showed signs of being at stage 2 of level 1 or stage 4 of level 2. He found not everybody, including adults, reaches level 3. In fact, only a minority of people do. Other researchers conducted a 20-year longitudinal study and found that stages 1 and 2 decrease with age. They found that stage 1 ended before age 18 in their sample, and that less than 10 percent of participants were in stage 2 by age 24. This percentage decreased even more by the time participants reached the age of 36, the highest age sampled. Researchers found that stage 4 was nonexistent in 10-year-olds and existed in 62 percent of 36-year-olds. They also found that stage 5 appeared around the ages of 20 to 22. People at this stage comprised only 10 percent of adults in their sample. They did not find stage 6. Thus, they concluded that moral stages develop a bit later than Kohlberg believed, and that stage 6 was rarer than Kohlberg thought.

Explain the relationship between cognitive development and moral development proposed by Kohlberg, including his views on social interactions with peers versus interactions with adults.

Kohlberg's theory of moral development mirrors aspects of Piaget's theory of cognitive development in terms of stages of thinking, and also echoes Piaget's concepts of heteronomous and autonomous morality. Therefore, each of Kohlberg's stages of moral development presumes a particular level of cognitive development that enables a specific level of moral reasoning has been reached. However, Kohlberg also maintained that progression to higher cognitive levels does not automatically dictate that the individual will progress to correspondingly higher levels of moral thinking. He found that experiences that involve addressing moral conflicts and questions are also important influences on children's moral development. Other psychological researchers have tested this argument by introducing children to conversations involving slightly higher levels of moral judgment. Their findings supported Kohlberg's assertion—this practice did advance moral development. Kohlberg also found peer interactions crucial as social stimulation to promote this progress. While adults impose rules on children, equal exchanges among peers allow perspective-taking and a democratic generation of rules to advance children's moral reasoning.

Discuss influences on moral reasoning proposed by Kohlberg's developmental theory. Identify Kohlberg's beliefs, other researchers' findings, and applicable concepts developed by Piaget and Vygotsky.

Kohlberg's theory was based on Piaget's theory of cognitive developmental stages. He also applied Piaget's concept of perspective-taking, being able to see another's point of view, as an influence on the advancement of children's moral reasoning. Additionally, Kohlberg agreed with Piaget that the individual seeks homeostasis and equilibrium, and that the conflict created by disequilibrium motivates further moral development to resolve it. Other researchers have experimented with Vygotsky's concepts of scaffolding and the zone of proximal development by exposing children to discussions involving slightly higher levels of moral development than the children's current levels. Scaffolding is providing the support and guidance needed to help a child begin to comprehend a concept, and then gradually withdrawing it as the child learns. The zone of proximal development applies to situations in which children can complete tasks with guidance, but not independently. The guidance provided in such situations promotes learning and independent mastery of the skill. Researchers found that any exposure to higher moral levels promotes moral development, supporting Kohlberg's beliefs.

Summarize some important aspects of Vygotsky's social constructivist approach to development.

Lev Vygotsky's theory describes learning, and places an emphasis on social contexts and social interactions as the bases for constructing knowledge. Vygotsky coined the term zone of proximal development (ZPD), which refers to skills that a child is just developing but cannot yet perform independently. This zone's lower limit is the skill level the child reaches independently, and its upper limit is the responsibility level the child can handle with assistance. Vygotsky found that children's learning is enhanced when they receive guidance from an adult or a more skilled child to complete activities that are too difficult for them to master alone. Vygotsky also introduced the term scaffolding, which refers to support that others give a learner. This support is adjusted to reflect learning progress. Parents, teachers, older children, and more skilled peers give the learner the amount of guidance necessary initially, and then gradually withdraw it as the child's performance progresses toward autonomy.

Name the key adjectives identified by Goldberg (1990) as markers for the each of the big five personality traits.

Lewis R. Goldberg is known for conducting the most systematic research on the big five personality traits. He developed one-word adjectives to describe each trait. Similar to Norman (1963), he used polar opposites to represent the extremes of each trait. For the trait of surgency or extraversion, Goldberg's key adjectives are: talkative, extraverted, assertive, forward, and outspoken versus shy, quiet, introverted, bashful, and inhibited. For the trait of agreeableness, Goldberg's key adjectives are: sympathetic, kind, warm, understanding, and sincere versus unsympathetic, unkind, harsh, and cruel. For the trait of conscientiousness, Goldberg's key adjectives are: organized, neat, orderly, practical, prompt, and meticulous versus disorganized, disorderly, careless, sloppy, and impractical. For the trait of emotional stability, Goldberg's key adjectives are: calm, relaxed, and stable versus moody, anxious, and insecure. For the trait of intellect or imagination, Goldberg's key adjectives are: creative, imaginative, and intellectual versus uncreative, unimaginative, and unintellectual.

Identify some combinations of the big five personality traits or dispositions that researchers have found are associated with specific life outcomes.

Many researchers have found that the best predictors of getting good grades are high conscientiousness and high emotional stability. These students are more likely to study and less likely to procrastinate. Risky sexual behaviors such as not using protection and having many partners are associated with high extraversion, high neuroticism, low conscientiousness, and low agreeableness. Alcohol consumption is associated with high extraversion and low conscientiousness. The latter is also associated with increased drinking over time. Those who climb Mount Everest tend to have high scores for extraversion and emotional stability, but also psychoticism. Happiness and an overall positive affect are associated with high extraversion and low neuroticism. People who do volunteer work tend to have high agreeableness and high extraversion scores. Those who are less likely to join labor unions have low extraversion and high emotional stability scores. People who are more forgiving when others have wronged them tend to have high agreeableness and emotional stability scores. In businesses, leadership effectiveness is associated with high extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability scores.

Describe the findings of Mary Ainsworth during her experiments with the "strange situation" about babies' attachments to caregivers.

Mary Ainsworth devised a series of experimental measures she called the "strange situation" to describe different infant attachment styles. She defined four types of attachment—one secure and three insecure. Securely attached babies explored a playroom environment from the secure "base" of the mother. They sometimes objected mildly when the mother left, but re-established positive interaction on her return, smiling or climbing into her lap. These babies then resumed their play. Insecurely attached, avoidant babies avoided the caregiver, were not upset when she left the room, and did not make contact on her return. They usually looked and/or leaned away when the mother made contact. Insecurely attached, resistant babies frequently clung to their mothers, and then fought contact. In the strange situation they anxiously clung to their mother, did not explore the playroom, cried loudly when the mother left, and pushed away from contact on her return. Insecurely attached, disorganized babies seemed disoriented in the strange situation. They displayed extreme fear and/or confusion, avoidance, or resistance.

Explain how the levels in Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs are related to one another, and include an example.

Maslow depicted human needs using a pyramid. He placed physiological requirements for survival at the bottom. These include air, sleep, water, food, and sex for procreation. At the next level are safety needs, which include shelter, security from danger, and an orderly, predictable life. These are also mostly physical. The higher levels are more social and psychological: the need for belongingness to groups; the need for self-esteem and others' esteem; and self-actualization, or realizing one's full potential (the pyramid's peak). Maslow proposed that each level of the hierarchy depends upon the previous one. In other words, a person cannot meet higher needs without first satisfying the lower ones. For example, a person who is starving will be too occupied with the quest for food to stay alive to be equally concerned about meeting his or her full potential, being regarded well by others, or belonging to a group. Even safety needs are superseded by physiological needs. Therefore, someone might sacrifice safety for food, water, or sleep.

Identify the markers used by Norman (1963) to define each of the big five personality traits.

Norman used pairs of opposites as markers for each of the big five personality traits. For the trait of surgency (extraversion), he identified these markers: talkative-silent, sociable-reclusive, adventurous-cautious, and open-secretive. For the trait of agreeableness, he identified these markers: good natured-irritable, cooperative-negativistic, mild/gentle-headstrong, and not jealous-jealous. For the trait of conscientiousness, he identified these markers: responsible-undependable, scrupulous-unscrupulous, persevering-quitting, and fussy/tidy-careless. For the trait of emotional stability, he identified these markers: calm-anxious, composed-excitable, not hypochondriacal-hypochondriacal, and poised-nervous/tense. For the trait of culture (also called intellect or imagination by others), he identified these markers: intellectual-unreflective/narrow, artistic-non-artistic, imaginative-simple/direct, and polished/refined-crude/boorish. Each person will fall somewhere on a continuum between these opposite extremes. For example, an individual might show greater or lesser degrees of calmness or anxiety, someone might be slightly jealous or somewhat jealous, etc.

Define the concept of object permanence as it relates to Piaget's cognitive developmental theory. Include a discussion of A-not-B errors, and provide some examples.

Object permanence is one of the most important developments for babies in Piaget's first, sensorimotor, stage. It is the understanding that objects are not "out of sight, out of mind," but still exist even when they are not seen. For example, if a baby is interested in an object and you conceal it from view by covering it with a blanket or placing a barrier in front of it, the baby who has not achieved object permanence will not search for the object. At this point, babies find peek-a-boo games magical, because your face is there, disappears, and then reappears as if by magic. Babies with object permanence will look for hidden objects. If you hide something and then hide it elsewhere, and the baby still searches in the first hiding place, this is an A-not-B error. Babies with fully developed object permanence will look in the right place. They are entertained by peek-a-boo games and jack-in-the-box toys because they understand the concept of object permanence, and the reappearance meets their expectations.

Explain the concept of the Oedipus complex as it relates to Freud's theory of psychosexual development. In your answer, include the origin of the complex's name, how it is resolved, and examples of associated behaviors often observed by parents.

Oedipus was an ancient Greek figure mentioned by Homer and others, and most famously depicted in the playwright Sophocles's tragedy, Oedipus Rex. Oedipus's fate was to murder his father and marry his mother. Sigmund Freud borrowed his name when he developed his concept of the Oedipus complex, which he said occurs in boys when they are around three to six years old. Freud theorized that boys unconsciously have unacceptable sexual desires for their mothers, and equally unacceptable aggressive desires to kill their fathers to have their mothers all to themselves. Parents see this when a four or five-year-old son says, "Go away, Daddy. I want Mommy." Freud theorized that boys also unconsciously dread castration by their fathers as retribution for these impulses. He said boys resolve their unacceptable urges through the process of "identification with the aggressor": being like their fathers to avert competition and repress attraction for their mothers. Parents see this when little boys try to dress and behave "just like Daddy," and start to develop more masculine qualities.

Identify some risk factors related to the domain of school that can adversely affect child development, and outline corresponding factors of resilience that can counter these risk factors.

One primary risk factor related to the school domain that adversely affects child development is low school involvement by the student. A major contributor to low involvement in school is a cycle of failure. For example, a student finds academics difficult; the student engages in escape behaviors to escape his or her failure; and the teacher avoids the issue, perpetuating the failure cycle. Some resilience factors to support students identified by educational psychology researchers are: including students in school policy decisions, matching instruction to individual students' ability levels, engaging in educational practices that make it easier for students to succeed, providing effective academic instruction, and using effective behavior management techniques. Another major risk factor is the chain of events stemming from poor involvement in academics. These include truancy, suspension, expulsion, and dropping out. Resilience factors to combat this include: increasing students' active participation, providing instruction that is meaningful to students, facilitating prosocial student groups, developing functional behavior assessments, and replacing participation in gangs and other deviant behaviors with more prosocial behaviors.

Discuss some aspects of the early part of the parenting phase in family life cycle theory related to having a baby, including roles and changes for the adults.

Parenting is among the most challenging parts of the family life cycle. Because having children takes up so much time and attention, mastering communication, problem solving, and relationship skills in earlier phases is important. It is more difficult to develop them during such a busy time. Additionally, the parenting stage routinely challenges these skills. Each adult in this stage has three separate, demanding roles: individual, partner, and parent. Partners' individual identities shift, and so does how they relate to one another and to others. Successful transitions to this phase depend on having mastered skills for compromise and commitment in earlier stages. As well as joy, prospective parents experience stress and fear. Pregnancy and childbirth are enormously stressful for women physiologically, emotionally, and psychologically. It is common for women to experience anxiety and fear at this time. Men often don't express their fears and emotions, which can lead to health problems.

Define the terms "centration" and "conservation" as they relate to Piaget's cognitive developmental theory, and include some examples.

Piaget found that young children in the second, preoperational, stage exhibited centration, meaning they centered their attention on one aspect of an object and ignored all others. Centration occurs in children who have not yet developed an understanding of conservation (the concept that changing the appearance of a substance or object does not alter its properties). For example, if you pour a given amount of liquid from a short, wide beaker into a tall, narrow beaker, the preoperational child will center on the second beaker's height and say there is more liquid than there was in the first beaker. Children around the ages of seven or eight years old who can reverse mental operations will say the amount is the same, justifying it by pointing out that if you poured the liquid back into the first beaker, the amount would be the same as before it was poured into the second beaker. Similarly, if preoperational children are shown balls of clay of the same size, and one is then rolled into a long "snake" in front of them, they will say the longer piece has more clay than the ball. Developing the concept of conservation causes "decentration."

Identify the styles of caregivers associated with each type of infant attachment defined by Mary Ainsworth through her strange situation studies.

Psychologists have widely accepted and applied Ainsworth's definitions. She described securely attached babies and insecurely attached babies, which were avoidant, resistant, or disorganized in their behaviors. Later research studies have found several patterns of association. Babies who display insecurely attached, avoidant behaviors (such as avoiding contact and interaction) are likely to have caregivers who either reject the babies or are unavailable. They frequently do not respond to the babies' communications, engage in little physical contact with them, and may respond irritably or angrily in interactions with them. Insecurely attached, resistant babies (ones that resist contact and interaction) are likely to have caregivers who respond to their needs inconsistently, are generally not very affectionate, and display little synchrony when interacting with them. Babies with insecure, disorganized attachment styles (ones that are disoriented, extremely fearful, and/or confused) frequently have caregivers who physically abuse and/or neglect them.

Identify some of the occupations associated with high or low scores for some of the personality factors on Cattell's 16-Personality Factor Scales.

Raymond Cattell designed a taxonomy of personality that lists 16 different personality factors (PF). Various occupational groups have been tested with Cattell's PF scales. People in certain job groups tend to score higher or lower than the average on Cattell's 16-Personality Factor Scales. Athletes and judges have high scores for dominance; janitors, cooks, and farmers have low scores. Air traffic controllers and military cadets have high scores for conformity, while university professors have low scores. Artists, musicians, and employment counselors have high scores for sensitivity; engineers have low scores. Accountants have high scores for suspiciousness. "Absent-minded professors," artists, and research scientists have high scores for imagination and are more creative. Accountants and statisticians have high scores for self-sufficiency, and Antarctic explorers have some of the highest self-sufficiency scores of all occupational groups. Social workers have comparatively low scores in this category. Airline pilots have high scores for self-discipline.

Define the terms risk factors and resilience factors and describe their impact on development. Identify the domains related to risk factors and resilience factors. Identify several risk factors and their corresponding resilience factors.

Risk factors are situations or conditions that are empirically associated with certain outcomes (Reddy et al, 2001). Resilience is a quality that enables individuals to "....make appropriate behavioral choices in the presence of multiple risk factors" (Finley, 1994). Risk and resilience function via complex interactions across domains of life, including the domains of the individual, the family, the school, social peer groups, and the community. Some individual risk factors researchers have identified are cognitive deficits: in reading readiness, in following directions, in vocabulary, and in social skills. Resilience factors that help offset negative outcomes from these risk factors include early intervention programs involving training in cognitive skills; training programs for parents that teach them how to teach their children; and preschool programs such as Head Start, Jump Start, or the Perry Preschool Program to bring young children's school readiness up to sufficient levels so they can succeed when they begin elementary school.

Describe some of the general developmental changes in parent-child relationships that take place during middle and late childhood.

Some researchers found that parents of 5- to 12-year-old children spent less than half as much time on caregiving, instruction, reading, talking, and playing compared to parents of preschoolers. Despite this reduction in time, parents are still very important to children at these ages. They are particularly influential in stimulating and supporting their children's academic performance. Children's achievement levels in school are strongly influenced by the value their parents place on education. Parents also influence their children's extracurricular activities. Research studies have found that the degree to which parents enroll their children in activities such as music and sports has a strong influence on whether children will participate in such activities. Parental discipline shifts from physical (commonly used with preschoolers) to verbal and behavioral as children grow older. Parents gradually allow children more control as they develop more self-regulation. Major shifts toward autonomy, including relating regularly to non-familial adults (like teachers), emerge in adolescence.

Define the family life cycle and name its five stages. Describe some aspects of moving through these stages. Identify a benefit of successful transitions, according to family life cycle theory.

The family life cycle represents the intellectual and emotional stages that an individual goes through as a member of a family over its life span. In each stage, we encounter challenges within our family lives that lead to the acquisition of new skills or the building upon of existing ones to cope with these challenges. Developing these skills enables us to work through the changes inherent in family life. The family life cycle is made up of these stages: (1) independence, (2) coupling or marriage, (3) parenting children from infancy through adolescence, (4) launching children as young adults, and (5) retirement or the senior years. Our mastery of the milestones and skills associated with each stage enables us to progress to the next stage. We will still move to the next stage without mastering the previous stage's skills. However, lack of mastery leads to relationship problems and difficulties in making future transitions. Family life cycle theory suggests that successful transitions may also prevent stress-related and emotional disorders and diseases.

Discuss the fifth and sixth stages of psychosocial development in Erikson's theory. Provide the names of the stages, the ages at which they occur, important events, and the results of successful and unsuccessful conflict resolution.

The fifth stage in Erikson's theory of psychosocial development occurs during adolescence. It involves the nuclear conflict of identity vs. role confusion. The important events in this stage are social relationships. Teenagers begin to develop a sense of self and a personal identity. Teens who succeed develop the ability to remain true to themselves. Those who fail are confused about their roles in life and have a weak sense of self. During young adulthood—between the ages of about 19 and 40—people are in the sixth stage of development, which is intimacy vs. isolation. The important event in this stage is the formation of intimate relationships. Young adults who succeed in resolving this nuclear conflict are able to establish strong, loving, intimate relationships with other people. Those who fail to resolve this conflict end up feeling isolated and lonely.

Summarize how information-processing theory addresses human growth and development, and compare and contrast it with Piaget's and Vygotsky's developmental theories.

The focus of the information-processing theory of human growth and development is the way in which people interpret the information they obtain from the environment; and how they monitor this information, manipulate it, and use it to strategize. Whereas Piaget's cognitive developmental theory is discontinuous, proposing discrete stages of development, information-processing theory is not. It is more similar to Vygotsky's social cognitive theory, which depicts gradual, continuous progress. Similarly, information-processing theory states that the individual's ability to process information gradually increases as they grow, enabling them to attain knowledge and skills of increasing complexity. According to information processing theorists, perceiving, encoding, decoding, representing, storing, and retrieving information are components of information processing, and information processing equals thinking. Learning effective strategies for processing information is important to development. For example, to improve in reading, a student might learn to look for and identify the main themes in reading materials.

Identify the foundation of all psychodynamic theories of personality. Identify the three main personality structures and summarize their features. Explain these personality structures with an example.

The foundation of all psychodynamic theories is Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory. Freud proposed that the personality is organized into three main structures: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is regulated by the pleasure principle. It represents the person's most basic, unconscious drives and impulses. It is the personality's energy source, and motivates people to act. The ego is regulated by the reality principle. It represents the conscious, rational mind. It acts as a mediator between the id's desire for immediate gratification and the superego's moral rules of right and wrong. The superego is likened to the conscience. The superego incorporates the ego ideal, the individual's idea of the kind of person he or she should be. For example, if you want something belonging to someone else, your id says, "I want that. Take it!" Your ego says, "If I take it, I will get arrested for stealing." Your superego says, "Stealing is wrong. I should not steal even if I would not get caught."

Describe some of the major aspects of development during the independence stage of the family life cycle, according to family life cycle theory.

The independence stage is considered the most critical stage of the family life cycle. Its developments incorporate aspects of Erikson's psychosocial developmental stages of identity vs. role confusion (adolescence) and intimacy vs. isolation (young adulthood). In this stage, we begin separating from our families, working toward supporting ourselves physically, financially, emotionally, and socially. We further define our unique individual identities. In intimate relationships, we learn about similarity, compatibility, attachment, non-familial dependence, commitment, and shared emotion. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) individuals may "come out" to others during this stage. We explore career interests and goals and establish ourselves in work. We also become responsible for our own health, developing habits related to nutrition, exercise, and sex. In addition to identity, we develop trust, morality, initiative, and work ethics. Even after the actual independence stage is over, we continue to learn additional skills related to independence throughout our lives.

Discuss some salient aspects of the "empty nest" stage of launching adult children, according to family life cycle theory.

The period when grown children leave home has many pros and cons. When a family has developed strong skills throughout the family life cycle, children have learned what they need to feel ready to cope with life's challenges independently. Parents who are relieved of many daily parental duties may rekindle their relationships as couples. Some also resume or revise their career goals. Couples who did not share in their transitions may find they have grown apart or are no longer compatible. However, according to family life cycle theory, they can still learn whatever skills they did not master in earlier stages through self-examination, education, and counseling. In this phase, developing adult relationships with one's children continues to be as important as is it was while parenting adolescents. One challenge is accepting new family members via adult children's relationships. "Empty nest" parents may reassess their life priorities and beliefs and forgive others' past wrongs.

Identify and describe the first four of the eight developmental periods in the human lifespan.

The prenatal period is the (usually) nine months from conception to birth. There is enormous development during this time. A single cell forms into a complete organism with a brain. The period of infancy lasts from birth to 18 to 24 months. It is characterized by great dependence on adults. Many psychological abilities and processes are just starting to develop. These include sensorimotor coordination, language, symbolic thinking, and social learning. The period of early childhood follows infancy, and lasts until the age of about five or six. Young children and preschoolers learn more skills related to self-care and self-sufficiency. They also learn skills that help prepare them for school, such as following directions and recognizing the letters of the alphabet. The developmental period of middle and late childhood corresponds roughly with the elementary school years. Children in this stage are between the ages of 6 and 11, and master reading, writing, and arithmetic during this period. They receive formal exposure to the bigger world and to their culture. Children's self-control increases, and achievement becomes more important to them.

Summarize some of the main concepts related to Carl Rogers's humanistic theory of personality.

Therapist Carl Rogers worked with many dysfunctional clients, yet he focused on the healthy personality, just as fellow humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow did. He called the healthy personality the "fully functioning person." According to Rogers, such persons have self-concepts that are both positive and consistent with reality. Rogers believed it was imperative for psychology to acknowledge the importance of our perceptions and emotions. He called these the "phenomenal field." The phenomenal field affects our responses. We react not to an objective reality but to our own subjective experience of it. The phenomenal field is thus the part of the personality that filters our experiences. It includes the self (which Freud called the ego) and our interpretations of our inner and outer worlds. In reaction to his own unhappy childhood with overly strict parents, Rogers proposed that people need "unconditional positive regard"(acceptance from others without qualifications/restrictions/conditions) rather than conditional love, which is dependent on certain behaviors or factors.

Identify and explain several ego defense mechanisms described in Freudian theory.

There are other Freudian defense mechanisms aside from denial (of reality), displacement (of emotion, usually anger), and fantasy (satisfying frustrated desires through imaginary events). One is identification, in which people boost their feelings of self-worth by identifying themselves with another person, group, or institution, often one with exemplary status. Isolation is an ego defense mechanism that is also known as compartmentalization. By separating conflicting attitudes into individual mental "compartments" so that they are never considered concurrently or in relationship to each other, the individual eliminates inner conflict. Isolation can also involve separating the emotional content from hurtful events. Projection involves blaming others for one's problems or attributing one's own unacceptable impulses to others. Abusive individuals often blame their victims, saying things like "You made me hurt you by what you did." A person who cannot accept that he or she hates somebody might say to that person: "You hate me." In rationalization, people try to justify their behavior as logical or rational, and hence acceptable.

Discuss the seventh and eighth stages of psychosocial development in Erikson's theory. Provide the names of the stages, the ages at which they occur, important events, and the results of successful and unsuccessful conflict resolution.

Though the earlier stages of Erikson's theory are similar to Freud's theory in that they focus on nursing, toilet training, exploration, school, and puberty, Erikson differed from Freud in that he proposed stages for an individual's entire life span (up until death). In contrast, Freud's stages ended with adolescence. According to Erikson's theory, in middle adulthood—from the ages of around 40 to 65—people are in the stage of generativity vs. stagnation. The important events associated with this stage are work, parenthood, and/or family. Adults who succeed in generativity by creating and/or nurturing children and/or other things that will last beyond their own lives and benefit others develop feelings of accomplishment and of being productive and useful. Failure to resolve this nuclear conflict results in the person having a shallow involvement with the world. From age 65 on is the stage of ego integrity vs. despair. Older adults looking back on life feel fulfillment and wisdom with success; or regret, despair, and bitterness with failure.

Summarize some characteristics that were found in research to correlate with high and low scores for Eysenck's personality traits of psychoticism and neuroticism.

Various research studies have found that people with high neuroticism (N) scores are more likely to experience anxiety and depression. Typically, they have trouble sleeping and display a variety of psychosomatic symptoms (medical symptoms caused by psychological problems). People with "high N" scores typically overreact with negative emotions and are more emotionally aroused by everyday stressors. They also have more difficulty recovering from emotional upset. People with "low N" scores are more emotionally stable, calmer, and more even-tempered. They react more slowly to stressful occurrences and recover more quickly from emotionally upsetting events. Those with high psychoticism (P) scores are often loners, and display insensitivity to others' suffering, aggression, and cruel or inhumane behaviors. Men's P scores are typically about twice as high as women's. People with "high P" scores often seek novelty, disregard danger, and exhibit antisocial tendencies. They are attracted to violent material and behaviors. "Low P" scorers tend to be deeply religious, while "high P" scorers are more cynical about religion.

Explain Vygotsky's concepts of private speech and inner speech as they relate to his theory of social cognitive development.

Vygotsky believed that language and thought first develop independently, and are later combined. He emphasized the external, social sources of all thinking. He said children must use language outwardly to communicate for a long time before they can internalize it to their own thoughts. Between the ages of about three and seven, children begin to talk to themselves aloud (as many parents can attest to) to help them work through and solve problems by controlling and guiding their own behaviors. Eventually, this self-talk, or private speech as Vygotsky called it, becomes mental and silent. Vygotsky termed this mental self-talk inner speech, which becomes the child's thoughts. He viewed children using more private speech as more socially competent, maintaining that private speech indicates an earlier development of more social communication. Research supports Vygotsky's ideas: children use more private speech when completing difficult tasks, when they have erred, and when they are uncertain how to proceed. Researchers have also found that children who use private speech are more attentive and improve their performance more than those who do not.

Provide a general overview of Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial development, and compare and contrast it with Freud's theory.

While Freud's focus of development was psychosexual, Erikson's was psychosocial. Freud focused on early child-parent interactions as influences on development, while Erikson focused on interactions between the individual and society. (One of his greatest and best-known books is Childhood and Society.) Erikson's theory is considered neo-Freudian because so many of its elements resemble those found in Freud's theory. This is particularly true of Erikson's descriptions of earlier developmental stages. Both theories are discontinuous and comprised of developmental stages. While Freud believed development was essentially complete and that there were no more stages or major changes after puberty, Erikson believed that people continue to develop throughout their lives, and his theory includes stages for all ages. Both theories involve a conflict in each stage, which must be resolved. While Freud described psychosexual conflicts, Erikson described psychosocial crises or "nuclear conflicts." While Freud named each stage after the relevant erogenous zone (oral, anal, phallic, and genital), Erikson named each of his stages after the conflict outcomes (e.g. trust vs. mistrust).

Identify the 16 personality factors in the scale created by Raymond Cattell, and describe any that are unclear.

While one of the smallest personality trait taxonomies was Eysenck's, which consisted of three main traits, Cattell's was one of the largest, consisting of 16 personality factors (PF). He labeled them alphabetically.A: interpersonal warmth, similar to Eysenck's trait of extraversion - personable, easy to get along with, adapt to others' needs, and like helping. B: intelligence. C: emotional stability, similar to Eysenck's concept of low neuroticism - good emotional resources and self-control, and tolerate stress well. E: dominance - assertive, aggressive, competitive, forceful, and direct. F: impulsivity - lively, enthusiastic, and like variety G: conformity - respect authority, are persistent and rigid, and dislike surprises. H: boldness. I: sensitivity - artistic, insecure, dependent, overprotected, and prefer reason over force. L: suspiciousness. M: imagination - impractical, unconventional, and unconcerned with trivia. N: shrewdness - diplomatic, polite, reserved, self-controlled, socially sophisticated, and poised. O: insecurity - worry, guilt, moodiness, anxiety, loneliness, depression, and sensitivity to criticism.Q1: radicalism - liberal attitudes, analytical and iconoclastic. Q2: self-sufficiency - prefer being alone, avoid group work, and don't rely on support from others. Q3: self-discipline - organized, controlled, and neat. Q4: tension -anxiety, frustration, irritability, trouble sleeping, and taking a long time to calm down after being upset.