Psychology Exam Chapter 11

Compare and contrast Kohlberg's levels of moral reasoning: preconventional, conventional, postconventional. What stage of Piaget's cognitive development is each moral stage most equivalent to? Consider examples of reasoning at each stage. Explain the failure of Kohlberg's work to address moral behavior (as opposed to moral reasoning).

A key aspect of social development is the emergence of more complex ideas of morality- one's distinction between right and wrong. As children grow older, their developing cognitive abilities allow them to draw more subtle inferences. • Piaget was a pioneer in the study of moral development, but his research was incomplete. Lawrence Kohlberg extended Piaget's approach and developed an influential theory of morality. He presented boys with moral dilemmas, situations in which there are moral pros and cons for each set of possible actions. Kohlberg asked participants to decide what each character should do and why. He was not as interested in what the children decided as he was in the way they reached their decisions. From their responses, he identified three general levels of moral development (each level represents a characteristic pattern of reasoning loosely tied to Piaget's stages of cognitive development) ... • The preconventional level rests on the idea that good behaviors are rewarded and bad behaviors are punished. Correct action is primarily determined by its consequences for the actor. Decisions are focused on external authority... egocentric in nature. • The conventional level rests on the role of rules that maintain social order and allow people to get along. Moral decisions are focused on the approval/disapproval of others (public opinion) and societal rules or laws. Children at this stage are concerned more about this than any individual punishment. Immoral actions are those for which one is socially condemned. • The postconventional level (also called the principled level) rests on the development of abstract principles that govern the decision to accept or reject specific rules. The morality of an action is determined by a set of general principles that reflect core values, such as the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Moral decisions are based on abstract reasoning that goes beyond law to one's personal code of ethics. When a behavior violates these principles, it is immoral, and if a law requires these principles to be violated, then it should be disobeyed. • Kohlberg believed that people must go through these stages in this order because each requires a more sophisticated set of cognitive skills than the one before it. He also believed that different people take different amounts of time to move through them and that many people never reach the last one. • Most of his research was conducted on American boys, so results may be somewhat sexist and inapplicable to non-Western cultures. Although recent research has revealed that males and females reason in rather similar ways regarding morality. • Also, it does not account for the difference between moral reasoning and moral behavior. The fact that someone reasons in a particular way doesn't guarantee that he or she will act on this reasoning.

Define Lev Vygotsky's concept of zone of proximal development as discussed in lecture and describe how he felt culture and cultural tools (in particular language) affect cognitive development.

According to Piaget, many people (about 1 in 4) will not reach the formal operational stage of reasoning, which depends on education aimed at developing these abstract skills. • Lev Vygotsky emphasized the role of social interactions during development. The child constructs representations by absorbing his or her culture, and the culture then serves to guide behavior. Adults promote cognitive development by guiding and explicitly instructing the child. Cultural creations, such as language, play a crucial role in development. Culture and the brain interact, as one affects the other. • Piaget thought that children were born curious and that their cognitive development unfolded as a result of their interaction with objects in the world. According to Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, cognitive development was largely the result of the child's interaction with members of his or her own culture rather than his or her interaction with objects. Vygotsky noted that cultural tools, such as language and counting systems, exert a strong influence on cognitive development. Language systems and counting systems are not merely ways for children to express their thoughts; they are ways for children to have thoughts, which is why children can perform certain tasks only if they are allowed to talk to themselves. • Vygotsky believed that at any age, a child was capable of acquiring a wide—but nonetheless bounded—range of skills, and he called this range the child's zone of proximal development (range of skills that a child can learn with the assistance of parents, teachers, or other adults). He suggested that children who interacted with teachers tended to acquire skills toward the top of this range, whereas children who did not tended to acquire skills toward the bottom. Parents seem to have an intuitive understanding of the zone of proximal development: They tend to direct their instruction toward the upper end of a child's range of skills, and as the child becomes more competent, they encourage the child to think about problems at higher levels.

Define puberty. What is the developmental definition of adolescence as discussed in lecture? How might this stage vary between cultures or societies? Compare and contrast primary sex characteristics and secondary sex characteristics as reviewed in the text.

Adolescence begins with puberty, the time when hormones cause the sex organs to mature and secondary sexual characteristics (physical changes such as genital hair, breast development for women, facial hair for men, vocal changes) to appear. These changes typically begin between ages eight to fourteen for girls and ages ten to sixteen for boys. • Adolescence is the period between the onset of sexual maturity at puberty and the beginning of adulthood (about 18 to 24 years of age). The start point of adolescence is well-marked by physical changes, but the endpoint varies widely between individuals and even cultures.

Define and describe temperament as discussed in lecture. Compare and contrast approach style- extroversion- and withdrawal style - negative affect- temperaments (i.e., "easy" and "difficult"). Consider how nurturing experiences and the "goodness of fit" can alter temperament and development.

Babies show the makings of individual personalities from their earliest hours. They demonstrate differences in temperament, or the innate inclinations to engage in a certain style of behavior (characteristic patterns of mood, emotional reactivity, and behavior- the inborn part of your personality). • Babies' temperaments are often classified as having an approach response- extroversion- or having a withdrawal response- negative affect (i.e., "easy" or "difficult")... • Having an approach response means that they generally react positively to new situations or stimuli. An "easy" temperament means that they do not cry often and are not demanding. They are happy, active, and social. • Having a withdrawal response means that they typically react negatively to new situations or stimuli, by crying, fussing, or otherwise indicating their discomfort. A "difficult" temperament means that they are fussy and demanding. They are often angry, fearful, shy, and frustrated. • The fact that these differences are present virtually from birth suggests, at least in part, biological factors. • Some of the stability of temperament may arise from early nurturing experiences. The best evidence of this effect comes from research with rat pups, which indicates that handling the pups had an enormous effect on the way the animals later responded to stressful events. Touching infants can enhance growth and development, reduce EEG activation in the right frontal lobe that is associated with depression, and boost immune function. Parents who perceive their infants as having a particular sort of temperament appear to influence the development of such a temperament. This is often referred to as "goodness of fit"- temperament predisposes a child to interact in certain ways and impacts the behavior of caregivers, but the environment itself and the nature of caregiving can impact the development of personality.

Compare and contrast behaviorist theories and nativist theories of language development as discussed in the lecture. Describe Noam Chomsky's concept of the language acquisition device as discussed in the lecture. Describe the critical period as it relates to language development.

Behaviorist theories, following the lead of B. F. Skinner, believe that language is entirely the result of learning. According to this theory, children acquire words and combinations of words through imitation. Such utterances then are reinforced. Thus, language is learned according to the same principles of learning that apply to all other materials. • In contrast, other linguists believe that the crucial aspects of language are innate (inborn), not learned. This theory is rooted in the school of philosophy known as nativism, which takes the view that people are born with some knowledge or abilities. Linguist Noam Chomsky has championed the nativist approach to language acquisition, theorizing that we are all born with an internal language acquisition device (LAD), an innate mechanism which contains a set of grammatical rules common to all languages and allows language acquisition. • The fact that virtually all normal humans come to speak a language is evidence that there is something special about the way people's brains are constructed to acquire and use language. Humans are innately gifted with the ability to acquire language. This doesn't mean that people acquire language all at once. In fact, many genetically-influenced characteristics do not appear full blown at birth. Language ability develops in an orderly progression. • To help a child learn language, caregivers instinctively adjust their speech so that the baby receives clear messages. The language that caregivers use to talk to babies is characterized by three notable characteristics: short sentences with clear pauses between phrases, careful enunciation, and exaggerated intonation that is spoken in a high-pitched voice. Similar patterns are observed in the sign language that caregivers use to communicate with deaf infants. • Children begin to understand words far in advance of their ability to say them. They can understand about 50 words at about 13 months of age but cannot say this many words until about 18 months. Studies suggest that the brain changes as language is learned and that maturational changes in the brain facilitate language learning. • At about two years of age, children start putting words together into simple, two-word utterances which packs a lot of information into a few informative words and typically omits words such as the, a, of. By about three years of age, children who speak English start to use sentences that follow the subject-verb-object sequence ("Dog chase cat") or whatever rules are appropriate for the language being spoken. Although adults generally do not teach grammatical rules to children or even systematically correct grammatical errors, even four-year-olds acquire such rules. • Throughout history, there have been reports of children who grew up in the wild, never exposed to human language. The few children studied by researchers who were not exposed to language until after puberty - such as the 18th-century feral child Victor of Aveyron - showed that they developed only primitive language skills despite gains in other areas. • These cases provide a key test of the theory that language can be learned only during a narrow window of time called the critical period - a narrow window of time when a certain type of learning or some aspect of development is possible. This theory says that the brain is "set" for the development of language (or other abilities) at a particular point and that trying to acquire the ability either earlier or later is fruitless. Careful studies have shown that children who are not exposed to language before puberty are never able to fully grasp the rules of grammar... the toddler years (1-4) are particularly important. Those who learn a second language after the age of 10 process their second language differently than their native language. • Explicit memory is heavily tied to language and language mastery, which is why most individuals have few conscious memories before age 4.

Describe Bowlby's theory of attachment as discussed in lecture. Define primary caregiver and separation anxiety as discussed in lecture. Describe Ainsworth's strange situation. Compare and contrast secure, avoidant, resistant/ambivalent, and disorganized attachments. How do babies react in the strange situation within each of these attachment styles? What does each of these styles predict in terms of adult relationships and behavior? Describe cultural variations in attachment patterns. Describe internal working model of relationships from the text

Bowlby surmised during their first 6 months, human infants begin to keep a mental tally of who responds most often and most promptly, and they soon begin to target their signals to the best responder or primary caregiver. This person quickly becomes the emotional center of the infant's universe. Infants feel secure in the primary caregiver's presence and will happily crawl around, exploring their environments with their eyes, ears, fingers, and mouths. A major shift, occurring between six months and two years, is characterized by separation anxiety, or fear of being away from the primary caregiver. This may arise just after cognitive development, because the infant can now think about and remember the primary caregiver even when he or she is not present. If their primary caregiver gets too far away, infants begin to feel insecure, and they take action to decrease the distance between themselves and their primary caregiver. Indeed, anything that threatens the infant's sense of security—for example, the sudden appearance of a stranger in the room—will cause the infant to move closer to the caregiver. • Not all infants become attached to their caregivers in the same way. Psychologist Mary Ainsworth developed what has come to be known as the strange situation, which is a behavioral test used to determine a child's attachment style. The test involves bringing a child and his or her primary caregiver to a laboratory room and then staging a series of episodes that range from abandonment (in which the primary caregiver briefly leaves the room) to reunion (in which the primary caregiver returns) as well as several interactions with a stranger, both in the absence and in the presence of the primary caregiver. • Research using the Strange Situation has revealed four types of attachment: secure attachment, avoidant attachment, resistant/ambivalent attachment, and disorganized/disoriented attachment... • Secure attachment (found in 60-70 percent of American babies) occurs when the caregiver is consistently attentive and responsive to the infant's cues. This is evident if babies venture away from the mother, are upset when she leaves, and are not well comforted by a stranger, but calm down quickly when the mother returns. Babies seem to regard their caregiver as a secure base from which to explore. • Avoidant attachment (found in 15-20 percent of American babies) occurs when the caregiver is inattentive and unresponsive to the infant's cues (NOT neglectful- children's needs are met- but often done in households that value independence). This is evident if babies don't seem to care very much whether the mother is present or absent, and are equally comfortable with her and a stranger. When she returns, they do not immediately gravitate to her. • Resistant/ambivalent attachment (found in 10-15 percent of American babies) occurs when the caregiver is attentive but intrusive, and not consistently responsive to the infant's cues (caregivers are emotionally labile and manipulative- "hot and cold"). This is evident if babies do not use the mother as a base of operations but rather stay close to her and become angry or very upset when she leaves. Some of these babies may go so far as to hit the mother when she returns and do not calm down easily thereafter. • Disorganized/disoriented attachment (found in 5-10 percent of American babies) occurs in unstable households characterized by consistent child neglect and/or abuse (physical and sexual). Also occurs when parent suffers from severe psychopathology or alcohol/drug addiction. This is evident if the babies become depressed and have periods of unresponsiveness along with spurts of sudden emotion at the end of the procedure. These infants show no consistent pattern of responses. They may or may not be distressed when their caregiver leaves, they may or may not go to her when she returns, and their reactions are often contradictory. For example, they may look fearful as they approach their caregiver, they may be calm when she leaves and then suddenly become angry, or they may simply freeze and appear confused or disoriented. • Various factors influence how an infant will become attached... prenatal activities of the mother, sensitivity of the mother to the baby, the baby's temperament, the "goodness of fit" between the mother and baby. • Attachment may vary by culture (Germans have more avoidant while Japanese have more secure), but attachment predicts later social adaptation. • Early attachment can have long-term consequences. For example, in comparison to children who had not been securely attached, children who had been securely attached during infancy had closer friendships and better social skills at age 11. Children appear to apply the working models of relationships they developed as infants to their later relationships with teachers, friends, bosses, co-workers, and significant others. The type of attachment determines how some genes operate, such as the genes underlying aggression and excessive drinking of alcohol. • A key aspect of social development is the emergence of more complex ideas of morality- one's distinction between right and wrong. As children grow older, their developing cognitive abilities allow them to draw more subtle inferences.

Why does cognition slow in late adulthood? Compare and contrast fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence as discussed in the lecture. How is each affected by aging? Compare and contrast longitudinal studies and cross-sectional studies as discussed in the lecture. Consider examples of each type of study.

Cognitive abilities remain relatively stable through most of adulthood, but by age 50 signs of decline begin to appear in some abilities. Aging itself probably doesn't cause neurons to die. However, aging does impair communication among neurons. It disrupts neurotransmitter function. It degrades the white matter of the brain (the connections among neurons). Eventually, changes in the brain catch up with people. By age 60, people perform most cognitive tasks more slowly than younger people do. • Although overall intelligence is remarkably stable into the late 70's, genetic influences on general intelligence increase with age. Investigators have examined whether age affects all types of intelligence in the same way. In particular, they have examined the effects of aging on two types of intelligence. Fluid intelligence involves flexibility in reasoning and the ability to figure out novel solutions (problem-solving and processing speed). Crystallized intelligence involves using knowledge as a basis of reasoning (cognitive encyclopedia). Crystallized intelligence may be thought of as underlying much of what we mean by "wisdom." It may explain why older adults were rated as telling more interesting, higher-quality, and more informative stories than younger adults. • Fluid and crystallized intelligences have been assessed in two types of studies. Longitudinal studies test the same group of individuals repeatedly, at different ages. Cross-sectional studies involve testing different age-groups of people at the same time. The key here is to ensure that the groups are equivalent to each other on all possible measures except age. These studies have led researchers to conclude that fluid intelligence begins to decline as early as the late twenties, whereas crystallized intelligence may actually grow with age and decline only very late in life.

Regarding visual perception in infants, describe the visual cliff experiment and the habituation (looking time) technique and consider the findings of these studies.

Developing motor control is important because it helps the child develop capacities as varied as distance perception, visual search abilities, and using gestures to communicate. • The sensory organs develop with age. • Young infants view the world blurrily. They have no distance vision and require more contrast than adults to see well. They have an innate preference for gazing at human faces, which has obvious social benefits. With age, visual acuity increases and distance perception develops. This is in part because of developments in the eye—particularly, the lens and retina. To study vision in infants, psychologists have developed a number of techniques... • In the visual cliff experiment, infants are placed on a level sheet of glass that, at first, lies directly on the floor but then extends over a part of the floor that has been stepped down. Even six-month-old infants don't want to crawl over the "deep end," even when coaxed by their mothers. Two-month-old infants have slower heart rates on the deep side. Slower heart rates indicate that someone is paying closer attention, which suggests that the infants could tell the difference between the two depths. So babies develop depth perception before the ability to talk or walk. • The habituation (or looking-time) technique is based on the fact that all animals habituate (get used to) to a stimulus. If a baby looks at a shape long enough, he or she will no longer find it interesting and will prefer to look at something new. By varying how two stimuli differ and noting the circumstances in which babies prefer a new stimulus after habituating to a previous one, it becomes possible to discover what differences they can detect. • Infant vision studies have shown the following: Babies can detect depth between two and three months of age. Newborns will notice if someone makes eye contact with him or her. In fact, even infants two to five days old prefer to look at faces that look directly at them rather than faces in which the eyes are averted. Although newborns notice only isolated portions of objects, within two to three months infants see overall shapes and organize line fragments into three-dimensional forms. By six months, infants can mentally fill in when their view of a moving object is briefly obstructed. As they grow older, babies need less stimulus information to recognize patterns. • Compared with visual perception, auditory perception appears to be more fully developed at an earlier age (e.g., parent voice recognition and music preferences at early ages). • Perceptual development continues beyond the first year of life. When two- and three-year-olds are shown an array of objects and asked whether it includes a specific object, they look haphazardly for it. In contrast, six- to nine-year-olds search for the object systematically. By age eleven, children have perceptual abilities that are similar to (although often slower than) those of adults. Some aspects of perceptual processing probably continue to develop until late adolescence. • There has long been a debate about how language is acquired. Two different camps have emerged from this debate...

Describe how the themes of continuity/consistency and discontinuity/transition relate to the field of developmental psychology as discussed in lecture.

Developmental psychology is the study of continuity and change across the life span. Two major themes of development: Continuity/Consistency (development that proceeds gradually and smoothly over time) and Discontinuity/Transformation (development that changes abruptly from one stage to the next).

Describe Erikson's concept of psychosocial development as discussed in lecture. Be familiar with the following stages from Erikson's theory and know what stage of life each is related to: trust v. mistrust, identity v. role confusion, intimacy v. isolation, generativity v. self-absorption. Does personality change during adulthood? Be familiar with emotional changes in old age.

Erik Erikson believed that there are eight stages of psychosocial development through the lifespan, or effects of maturation and learning on personality and relationships... 5 in childhood and adolescence and another 3 in adulthood (4 examples below) • Basic trust versus mistrust (0-1 year): Depending on how well they are treated by caregivers, infants either develop a basic trust that the world is good or fail to develop such a basic trust. • Identity versus role confusion (adolescence): The adolescent either successfully grapples with questions of identity and future roles as an adult or becomes confused about possible adult roles. • Intimacy versus isolation (young adulthood): The young adult either develops deep and intimate relations with others or is socially isolated. • Generativity versus self-absorption (middle adulthood): The adult in the "prime of life" must look to the future and determine what to leave behind for future generations. Failing this task leads to a sense of meaningless in life. • Changes in perspective are not the same as changes in personality. Evidence indicates that personality does not change substantially during adulthood. Personality is equally stable over time for both men and women. Even when people believe that their personality has changed, it really hasn't. Apparent changes in personality over time probably reflect not so much changes in the person as changes in the life challenges he or she is confronting at the time. • People experience different emotions as they age. As people enter old age, they tend to experience extended periods of highly positive emotions and less enduring spells of negative emotions. Older people are more "mature" in their emotional responses. They are better able to regulate their emotions.

Define zygote, embryo, and fetus. Compare and contrast the three phases of prenatal development as discussed in lecture: germinal stage, embryonic stage, fetal stage. Describe the major changes of each stage. Compare and contrast the ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm. Define placenta and myelination as discussed in lecture. Which stage presents the greatest vulnerability for the developing infant? Consider some of the developing abilities of the fetus.

Germinal stage: First two weeks of pregnancy- cell division of zygote, implantation, and formation of placenta (structure that allows oxygen and nutrients to pass into the fetus from the mother's bloodstream and bodily wastes to pass out to the mother) take place... half of pregnancies end here, usually unknown to the mother. • The fertilization of the egg by the sperm creates a cell called a zygote - a single cell containing chromosomes from both sperm and egg (term for the developing organism from conception through first two weeks of pregnancy). In a zygote, the chromosomes from the egg and sperm pair up so the zygote contains 23 pairs. Each zygote consists of a unique combination of genes. In theory, each human could produce some 70 trillion genetically different children. Once formed, the zygote begins to divide. The production of certain hormones causes genes to turn on and off in a specific sequence, guiding the zygote's development. • The zygote will differentiate into three germ layers- Ectoderm - develops into nerve tissue and skin Mesoderm - develops into muscle and bone Endoderm - develops the body's soft tissue (internal organs) Embryonic stage: Two weeks through two months- zygote becomes an embryo (term for developing organism from 2nd through 8th week of pregnancy); female-like embryos become masculinized with testosterone production; formation of most vital organs and organ systems (time of great vulnerability- any problems can be devastating for development). Fetal stage: Ninth week until birth (about 40 weeks)- fetus (term for developing organism from 8th week of pregnancy until birth). The muscles and bones begin to form and movement starts; body grows rapidly in the last three months; brain becomes much more complex with brain cells multiplying rapidly during the final 3 months and myelination - the formation of a fatty sheath around the axons of a brain cell takes place. The fetus is active nearly from the start. At first, the fetus makes automatic movements. Later, the fetus demonstrates large-scale, coordinated behaviors. After 20 to 25 weeks, the fetus is sensitive to both sound and light. If a fetus is examined by a special light-emitting instrument called a fetoscope, it will move its hands to shield its eyes. By 28 weeks, it responds to external stimulation. Between 25 and 34 weeks, a fetus can detect human speech and will recognize familiar speakers at birth. Fetuses can also learn. Characteristics of the fetus predict those of the child after birth.

Define object permanence, centration, conservation, egocentrism, animism, and mental representations as discussed in lecture. Be prepared to apply these terms to examples. Describe theory of mind as reviewed in the text.

In this period, infants cannot form mental representations that can be used to think about an object in its absence. In the early stages of the sensorimotor period, the infant does not yet have the concept of object permanence, the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be immediately perceived. Out of sight is out of mind. By age two, the toddler understands that objects exist even when they are no longer perceived. • A second major achievement of the sensorimotor period that occurs at about nine months of age is the ability to imitate. • The toddler enters the preoperational stage, which extends from roughly age two to seven. Children in the preoperational period are able to think about objects and events that are not immediately present. They can imitate actions that occurred in the past. This allows them to engage in fantasy and imaginary play. This age also marks the start of the development of "concrete operations". When you first learned to do arithmetic, you began by learning about things called numbers, and then you learned how to operate on those things by adding, dividing, subtracting, and multiplying them. Piaget suggested that during childhood, infants learn about physical things, but children learn how those things can be operated on or transformed. • So children in this stage are able to represent objects cognitively in their minds. However, they are unable to manipulate these mental representations, and they presume appearance equals reality. • Centration is the tendency to focus on just one property of an object to the exclusion of all others. Whereas adults can consider several properties at once, children focus on only one at a time. • The thinking of preoperational children is limited in part because they do not yet have a "logic" for manipulating, or operating on, mental representations. They do not understand conservation, the principle that certain properties of objects (e.g., amount and mass) remain the same even when their appearance changes, provided that nothing is added or removed. For example, preoperational children will not understand that pouring water from a short wide glass into a tall thin glass does not alter the amount of liquid. • As children develop, they discover their own minds. They also discover the minds of others. Because preoperational children don't fully grasp the fact that they have minds that mentally represent objects, they also don't fully grasp the fact that other people have minds that may mentally represent the same objects in different ways. Hence, they generally expect others to see the world as they do. Egocentrism is the failure to understand that the world appears differently to different observers (the inability to take another's viewpoint). This results in animism, the belief that all things are living, just like oneself. • One reason why preoperational children do not fully grasp the notion of conservation is that they do not fully grasp the fact that they have minds and that these minds contain mental representations of the world (mental images that represent one's perceptions of reality). As adults, we all grasp this fact, which is why we distinguish between the subjective and the objective, between appearances and realities, between things in the mind and things in the world. We make a distinction between the way things are and the way we see them. The concrete operations stage takes place roughly from ages seven to eleven. At about age seven, egocentrism disappears as children develop the ability to take another's perspective. They are able to perform concrete operations, manipulating mental representations in the same way they could manipulate the corresponding objects. Centration disappears as children develop an understanding of conservation. Concrete operations allow the child to reason logically, in part because this mode of conceptualizing is reversible. The child is now able to begin to classify objects and their properties. The child can grasp concepts such as length, width, volume, and time. The child can understand various mental operations such as those involved in simple arithmetic. • The formal operational stage emerges roughly at age eleven or twelve. Formal operations are reversible mental acts that can be performed even with abstract concepts. Formal operations allow the child to imagine the possibilities of "what could be," engage in abstract thinking, think about "what would happen if" situations, formulate and test theories, and think systematically about the possible outcomes of an act by being able to list alternatives in advance and consider each in turn. We become able to reason systematically about abstract concepts such as liberty and love and about events that will happen, that might have happened, and that never happened. At the concrete operational stage, children realize that their minds contain mental representations that refer to things in the world, but at the formal operational stage, they realize that some of their mental representations have no physical referents at all. There are no tangible objects in the world to which words such as freedom or mortality refer, and yet people at the formal operational stage can think and reason about such concepts in a systematic way. The ability to generate, consider, reason about, or otherwise operate on these nonreferential abstractions is the hallmark of formal operations. • Formal operational thinking also allows a more mature scientific approach, in which multiple variables are understood to influence a given outcome, and can systematically manipulate one variable at a time.

Define motor reflexes as reviewed in the lecture and the text. Be generally familiar with infant sensory capacities and reflexes present at birth.

Infants have a wide range of motor reflexes- specific patterns of motor response that are triggered by specific patterns of sensory stimulation (automatic responses to an event). These actions do not require thought (and are thus hard-wired or automatic). Most are designed to help promote survival and support at this early stage (some may have had survival value for our evolutionary ancestors) and then disappear within several weeks or months... o Major reflexes present at birth include the sucking, Moro or startle, Babinski, and eye blink reflexes. With the sucking reflex, the infant will suck on a finger put in his or her mouth until about three months of age. With the Moro or startle reflex, upon hearing a sudden loud sound, the infant will throw apart his or her arms, extend the legs, brings the arms together, and then cry until five months of age. With the Babinski reflex, the big toe flexes and the other toes fan out when the sole of the foot is stroked until about one year of age. With the eye blink reflex, the infant closes his or her eyes in response to a bright light in the eyes, which lasts for life.

Define and describe the developmental process of maturation as discussed in lecture.

Much of early development is determined by maturation, the process that produces genetically programmed changes in the body, brain, or behavior with increasing age. • Human development in the womb is divided into trimesters, or three equal periods of three months each. The first trimester is divided into three stages: the germinal stage; the embryonic stage, when the major axis of the body is present (about two weeks of age); and the fetal stage, when all major body structures are present (after eight weeks of age). • Germinal stage: First two weeks of pregnancy- cell division of zygote, implantation, and formation of placenta (structure that allows oxygen and nutrients to pass into the fetus from the mother's bloodstream and bodily wastes to pass out to the mother) take place... half of pregnancies end here, usually unknown to the mother.

What is the approximate age range of puberty for males and females in the USA? Consider reasons why this age has declined in recent years. Describe the gender differences for early and late maturation in terms of puberty as discussed in lecture.

Onset of puberty is genetically programmed, but there is considerable individual, cultural, and generational variation in the exact timing. Although girls usually experience their first period (menarche) about two years after the onset of puberty, many factors influence when this event occurs. Overall, we are hitting puberty earlier (about 12-13 for girls now compared to 16-17 in the early 20th century). This earlier age of menarche may reflect a secular trend in society: As children receive better health care, lead less physically strenuous lives, and, most importantly, have consistently better nutrition, puberty occurs earlier. Psychological stress, food additives, and chemical pollutants may also be involved. • The timing of puberty varies individually (8-14 for girls is typical, 10-16 for boys). Studies of early maturers vs. late maturers indicate that there are sex differences in effects of early vs. late maturation, with early maturing girls and late maturing boys having greater risk for psychological problems and social difficulties... Mostly due to effects of social pressures and peer behaviors in response to development (or lack thereof). Some research suggests that the timing of puberty has a greater influence on emotional and behavioral problems than does the occurrence of puberty itself.

Describe the major cognitive development of adolescence. Compare and contrast peer and family influence during adolescence and consider the role of emotions in adolescents' conceptions. How has the protraction of adolescence affected development during this stage as discussed in the lecture?

Physical development also involves growth, which occurs differentially for males and females. • The major cognitive development of adolescence that is achieved by some, but not all, youth is the ability to reason abstractly. Piaget's formal operations period describes the adolescent's cognitive achievement. Formal operational thinking allows a person to think abstractly, think systematically about abstract concepts and possible scenarios, think scientifically, holding everything else constant while systematically varying one factor at a time, grasp the rules that underlie algebra and geometry, and think about concepts such as justice, politics, relationships, and the causes of human behavior. These developments come in part from the final stages of brain maturation and in part from culture. • Emotion guides much of people's reasoning. Such processing relies on a part of the brain that is not fully mature during adolescence, so emotions do not guide teenagers' thinking effectively. This can lead to distortions in adolescents' conceptions of how others view them as well as distorted self-conceptions. Adolescents are also more easily influenced by peers in certain contexts. However, adolescents are influenced primarily by their families with regard to basic values and goals. • The age at which we are prepared to or are allowed to take on adult responsibilities has increased in the last century from the late teens into the early to mid 20's. As such, adolescence has become protracted in the last 100 years, and our culture has developed elaborate albeit widely varied rites of passages, many risky or self-destructive, because we feel like adults but are not allowed or expected to act like them for as long as 10 years or more.

Compare and contrast Piaget's four stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational. During what ages does each stage occur? What are the major milestones of each stage? What are the cognitive limitations and abilities of each stage?

Piaget described four major stages of cognitive development, each of which is governed by a different type of logic and includes many substages with key characteristics. The stages may overlap slightly and may occur at different ages for different children. Recent research shows that the brain undergoes rapid growth spurts around the times of transitions to new periods in Piaget's scheme, thus supporting this transitional theory. • The infant's experience begins in the sensorimotor stage. This period extends from birth to two years of age. Infants initially conceive of the world in terms of their perceptions and actions. As the word sensorimotor suggests, infants at this stage use their ability to sense (perceptual development) and their ability to move (motor development) to acquire information about the world in which they live (cognitive development). • In this period, infants cannot form mental representations that can be used to think about an object in its absence. In the early stages of the sensorimotor period, the infant does not yet have the concept of object permanence, the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be immediately perceived. Out of sight is out of mind. By age two, the toddler understands that objects exist even when they are no longer perceived. • A second major achievement of the sensorimotor period that occurs at about nine months of age is the ability to imitate. • The toddler enters the preoperational stage, which extends from roughly age two to seven. Children in the preoperational period are able to think about objects and events that are not immediately present. They can imitate actions that occurred in the past. This allows them to engage in fantasy and imaginary play. This age also marks the start of the development of "concrete operations". When you first learned to do arithmetic, you began by learning about things called numbers, and then you learned how to operate on those things by adding, dividing, subtracting, and multiplying them. Piaget suggested that during childhood, infants learn about physical things, but children learn how those things can be operated on or transformed. • So children in this stage are able to represent objects cognitively in their minds. However, they are unable to manipulate these mental representations, and they presume appearance equals reality.

Describe Lawrence Kohlberg's research on morality. What are moral dilemmas as discussed in lecture? How did Kohlberg assess moral development and what aspect of moral reasoning was he most interested in?

Piaget was a pioneer in the study of moral development, but his research was incomplete. Lawrence Kohlberg extended Piaget's approach and developed an influential theory of morality. He presented boys with moral dilemmas, situations in which there are moral pros and cons for each set of possible actions. Kohlberg asked participants to decide what each character should do and why. He was not as interested in what the children decided as he was in the way they reached their decisions. From their responses, he identified three general levels of moral development (each level represents a characteristic pattern of reasoning loosely tied to Piaget's stages of cognitive development) • A key aspect of social development is the emergence of more complex ideas of morality- one's distinction between right and wrong. As children grow older, their developing cognitive abilities allow them to draw more subtle inferences.

Describe the effect of adrenal androgen on sexual behavior as discussed in the lecture. Describe sexual scripts and explain how religious and cultural norms affect them as discussed in the lecture. How does the USA compare to other industrialized nations in terms of sex education, teen pregnancy, and teen sexually transmitted diseases? Consider reasons for these differences as discussed in the lecture.

The age at which we are prepared to or are allowed to take on adult responsibilities has increased in the last century from the late teens into the early to mid 20's. As such, adolescence has become protracted in the last 100 years, and our culture has developed elaborate albeit widely varied rites of passages, many risky or self-destructive, because we feel like adults but are not allowed or expected to act like them for as long as 10 years or more. • Adrenal androgen plays a role in sparking sexual interest- production spikes at same age for boys and girls even though girls hit puberty earlier on average. • Remember that sexual arousal and behavior are biological instincts (automatic response patterns) that do not require learning to occur. However, religious traditions and social norms play a leading role in determining when and how sexual interest "should" be expressed in behavior, according to cultural standards. • Sexual activity follows a script that is fairly standard across cultures... kissing precedes fondling, fondling precedes genital contact, etc. One major difference in scripts is the use of contraception... Americans seem to ignore or avoid that part of the script compared to other industrialized nations (we're more like a non-industrialized country in our use of contraception). • Americans have a considerably higher rate of teen pregnancy and STD's than our industrialized counterparts (2-5x as high), even though our sexual activity is at the same level. Sexual activity during adolescence is consistent across cultures (culturally universal).

Describe the cephalocaudal rule and the proximodistal rule in terms of motor development as discussed in the lecture. Consider examples. Be generally familiar with developmental milestones and their relationship to the process of maturation from #3 above.

The development of more sophisticated motor behaviors beyond reflexes tends to obey two general rules... Cephalocaudal rule - (or the "top-to-bottom" rule), which describes the tendency for motor skills to emerge in sequence from the head to the feet. Proximodistal rule - (or the "inside-to-outside" rule), which describes the tendency for motor skills to emerge in sequence from the center to the periphery. By age two, the child has good control over all limbs; however, fine motor control develops more slowly. Some children develop motor control better than others do (related to the kinesthetic sense from Sensation and Perception chapter). • Researchers describe a series of milestones that all babies pass in an orderly progression. Early theorists believed that the consistent and universal order of motor development implies that it is entirely maturational. Later studies have shown this theory is not completely correct, as environmental changes can affect this. For example, having children sleep on their backs has reduced the chances of SIDS, but infants who sleep on their backs have more difficulty holding their heads up and lowering them with control than infants who sleep on their bellies. Back-sleeping babies are slow to roll from their backs to their bellies, to sit up, to creep, to crawl, and to pull themselves to a standing position. Some babies never learn to crawl and go right to walking.

Describe how Jean Piaget studied cognitive development through infancy and childhood. Define schemas as discussed in lecture and consider examples. Describe the processes of assimilation and accommodation in terms of Piaget's developmental theory. Consider examples of each.

The gradual transition from baby to adult cognitive capacity is known as cognitive development. Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (widely considered the father of developmental psychology) developed a comprehensive theory of cognitive development. Piaget's theory was influenced by both his interests in biology and his curiosity about the types of reasoning mistakes children were likely to make at different ages. • Based on his observations, Piaget proposed that cognitive development consists of progress through stages, each characterized by a different set of abilities and assumptions about how the world works. Piaget believed these changes depended in part upon genetically programmed timing of brain development, but would only be achieved given the necessary learning experiences in the environment. • Piaget believed that babies begin with simple, innate schemas, or mental structures that organize sensory and perceptual input and connect it to the appropriate responses (a theory or model about the way the world works). As the child develops, the schemas develop in two ways. They become more articulated, meaning more precise. They become differentiated, or different from each other. The child's thinking changes systematically over time as new schemas develop. • Two processes are the engine that powers cognitive development... • The process of assimilation allows the infant to use existing schemas to organize and interpret new stimuli and respond accordingly (interpreting new experiences in terms of existing theories of the world without changing them... like knowing and following rules). • Accommodation results in existing schemas being revised or the creation of new schemas to cope with a broader range of situations (changing existing theories to explain new experiences... changing yourself to fit a new experience). • Assimilation and accommodation work together to produce a system of rules that guides the child's thought. Depending on the available schemas, different kinds of logical operations are possible. Piaget believed that cognitive development was an ongoing process in which infants develop, apply, and adjust their schemas as they build an understanding of the world. So we're born functioning like little scientists. Earlier, more simplistic understanding of the world leads to some interesting errors, which are corrected with age and experience.

Be generally familiar with the influence of genes and the environment on physical changes in late adulthood. Consider general effects of menopause on women.

• Americans are generally less informed about the causes and consequences of sexual activity. American parents don't like to talk about it with their kids, and they also don't like it taught in schools. Sketchy sex education programs and abstinence-only guidelines hamper education about sexuality. Repeated research studies worldwide have shown that sex education does NOT increase the likelihood of teens having sex (it's a biological urge that will be acted on whether parents like it or not), but it does decrease the likelihood of teen pregnancy and STD's. • By the early twenties, changes in a person's body should be relatively minor for some time. But after age 50, noticeable changes in the body begin to occur. Aging has two aspects: those that are programmed into the genes and changes that arise from environmental events, such as lack of adequate nutrition (e.g., fragile bones from a calcium deficiency), lack of exercise (e.g., obesity, frailty, plain sluggishness, and poor health), and lack of meaningful activities (e.g., feelings of helplessness and apathy). • One inevitable age-related change in women is menopause, the gradual ending of menstruation that typically occurs between the ages of 45 and 55. Following menopause, eggs are no longer released and pregnancy is not possible. Hormone changes that accompany menopause can lead to bodily sensations such as "hot flashes." These and other changes can adversely affect a woman's self-concept and self-esteem. But for many women, the physical discomforts of menopause are slight and the idea of sexual intercourse without the threat of an unwanted pregnancy provides new pleasure. Unfortunately, men experience declining vigor (strength and energy) with age, which can affect their sexual performance.

Define and describe attachment. Describe Harry Harlow's study of social isolation in monkeys. What prompted this research? How does this relate to social contact and development in human children?

• Research using the Strange Situation has revealed four types of attachment: secure attachment, avoidant attachment, resistant/ambivalent attachment, and disorganized/disoriented attachment...