PSYCH 1120 quiz 1

• Zygote:

  • once egg is fertilized
  • primary characteristic: rapid cell division
  • fertilized egg travels and embeds into the uterine wall
  • period of zygote ends when blastocyst implants into the uterine wall
• Embyo:

  • starts after fertilized egg implants in to the uterus
  • primary characteristics: major developmental advances (all major organs and systems)
• Ways of development:

  • cephalocaudal: idea that embryo develops significant changes in the brain and head first
  • proximodistal: significant development occurs first in centrally located features and moves peripherally
• Fetus:

  • characterized by refinements and finishing touches and significant growth
  • from week 9 onward the baby is a fetus
• Teratogens:

  • environmental agents that can negatively affect prenatal development
  • for example: alcohol, zika virus, thalidomide
  • exert biggest effect early in pregnancy
• Jean Piaget:

  • proposed a model of human cognitive development that progresses in stages from birth to adolescence
  • first according to Piaget a schema is created that constitutes the building block of knowledge
  • next, we assimilate new information that is similar to information that we already know
  • Next we accommodate by learning new information that does not fit elsewhere and creating a new cognitive structure
  • equilibrium is when an agreement between what children see in the world and the reality that exists in their minds
• Piaget proposed stages of cognitive development:

  • sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years)
  • preoperational stage (2-7 years)
  • concrete operational (7-12)
  • formal operational (12+)
• Sensorimotor stage:

  • sensorimotor coordination marks completion of feedback loops like grabbing a block and bringing it to the mouth
  • infantas at this stage lack object permanence
  • babies are using muscles and sensory capabilities to explore their bodies and the world
• Preoperational stage:

  • three important concepts: conservation, egocentrism, theory of mind
  • Egocentrism occurs when children have trouble taking the perspective of another individual
  • Children at this stage lack understanding of conservation (understanding that a ball of clay is the same amount rolled out long)
  • theory of mind: children at this stage develop the ability to adopt the perspective of someone else and understand behaviour of other people
• Concrete operational stage:

  • when each operation must not be solved anew
  • children become aware of conservation
  • learning is based on experience
• Formal operational stage:

  • abstract thinking emerges
• Lev Vygotsky:

  • proposed cognitive development must be considered in the cultural context of the child
  • proposed that parents support scaffolding during child development
• Attachment:

  • Konrad lorenz studied imprinting in ducks
  • his work revealed that after hatching eggs, infant ducks imprint on the first large moving object they see
• Bowlby and Ainsworth:

  • did research in attachment styles and found that infants were classed as:
  • securely attached: distressed but recovered
  • insecure-resistant: distressed and clingy
  • insecure- avoidant: little stranger anxiety or re-engagement with parent
• Lawrence Kohlberg:

  • looked at the development of moral reasoning
  • Heinz development video
  • Kohlberg presented individuals with short stories, to better understand how humans react to moral dilemmas
  • proposed three levels of moral thinking:
  • pre conventional morality- rule following guided by self interest
  • conventional morality- rule following in a broader sense, takes into account other people
  • postconventional morality- abstract reasoning leads to greater understanding of rights and ethics
• Brain development (adolescence)

  • last areas to develop are the frontal lobes especially the prefrontal cortex
  • this part of the brain is related to impulse inhibition and long-term planning
• Risk taking:

  • late development of corticol areas is believed to play a part in teenagers risk-taking
  • "brake" is not yet in place to prevent impulsive actions
• Dementia:

  Three principle types

  • alzheimers disease: most known accounting for 75% of cases
  • vascular dementia: reduced oxygenation of the brain (degradation of neuronal tissue)
  • Lewy body dementia: relatively rapid progression and incurable
• Reduce the risk of dementia by:

  • engaging in aerobic exercise
  • having a strong social network
  • staying intellectually active
  • maintaining responsible alcohol consumption
• Attachment styles in adulthood:

  • secure attachment: is related to an ability to be comfortable yet maintain independence
  • anxious or preoccupied: adults may have a tendency to cling to their partner
  • dismissive or avoidant: adults are comfortable without emotional closeness
• Aristotles two dimensions of intelligence:

  • practical wisdom- the application of knowledge
  • theorhetical wisdom- the extension of ideas across contexts
• The Flynn effect:

  • data was showing the mean intelligence of the population is increasing across decades
  • could be attributed to environmental factors and increasing development in health care
  • better education, nutrition and increased complexity in our environment can be attributed to the flynn effect
• Reliability in tests:

  • a reliable test is one that produces the same result over repeated testing
• Validity in tests:

  • validity means the test represents reality
  • intelligence tests must have predictive validity (must predict future preformance) for aptitude tests predictive power is good in early school years but not as much as you age
• Galton:

  • conducted first large statistical survey
  • hypothesized that cognitive ability was a product of heredity
  • discovered what is normal distribution in graphs
  • said that intelligence was not due to environmental factors and why waste money trying to improve the intelligence of dull people
  • thus belief is central to the eugenics movement
• Binet and Simon:

  • focused on developing a test to determine the grade of a school aged child
  • to measure intelligence they relied on cognitive measures:
  • direction- the ability to know what to do and how to do it
  • adaption- the abiloty to create strategies for implementing this knowledge and monitoring its progress
  • criticism- the ability to look back and find errors in ones thinking
• Wechsler's intelligence test:

  • deviation IQ was introduced to correct problems of intelligence leveling off around age 16
  • calculation of IQ score was changed to represent the persons score compared to the average preformance of others of the same age
  • WAIS tests also contain preformance tests (not relying on language or culture)
• Arthur Jensen:

  • proposed that speed of response was related to the speed of conduction of neurons involved in processing the stimulus and generating a response
• Stenberg:

  • used analogies as test stimuli
  • argued that more intelligent people take longer to encode the problem and come up with a general strategy
• Spearman:

  • believed we have one general intelligence (g) but at a lower level individuals also have specific abilities (s)
  • developed factor analysis, a statistical tool used to identify clusters of related items
  • people who do well in one area of intelligence tend to do well in other areas
• Thurstone:

  • identified 7 clusters of abilities
  • argued for specific intelligences
• Raymond Catell:

  • proposed hierarchal structure involoving both spearman and thurstones methods
  • general intelligence was at the top of the hierarchy and the next level contained fluid general intelligence and crystallized general intelligence
  • fluid general intelligence:relates to our general problem-solving ability , independent of content knowledge
  • crystallized intelligence: the specific content knowledge that we bring to a problem (our cognitive toolbox)
• Stenberg and three intelligences:

  • analytical intelligence- (academic problem-solving) where components are applied to standard IQ tests
  • Creative intelligence- components are applied to novel ideas
  • practical intelligence- components are applied to common tasks
• Gardner:

  • sees intelligence as several abilities some of which are packaged together
  • for example brain damage can destroy one ability without damaging others
  • ex. proposed: bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, musical ect.
• Cyril Burt:

  • did study in twins and was largely responsible for supporting the case of heritability of traits
  • accused of falsifying data
  • in several cases the twins lived in more or less the same environment discrediting his findings of the influence of environment on intelligence