Psyc 3310 - Ch.2 - Exam

• What are three key developmental processes - Biological, Cognitive, Socio-emotional
• Biological Processes - Produce changes in an individual’s physical nature

  • E.g. genes inherited from parents, the development of the brain, nutrition etc
• Cognitive Processes

  • Changes in the individual’s thought, intelligence and language
  • E.g. watching a colourful mobile swinging above the crib involves cognitive processes
• Socio-emotional Processes

  • Changes in the individual’s relationships with other people, changes in emotion and changes in personality
  • E.g. an infant’s smile in response to a parent’s touch
• Prenatal - conception to birth

  Infancy - birth to 18-24 months

  Toddler - 1 1/2 to 3 years
• Early Childhood - 3-5 years of age

  Middle and Late Childhood - 6 to 10-11 years of age

  Adolescence - 10-12 to 18-21 years of age
• Early Adulthood - early twenties to the thirties

  Middle Adulthood - 40 to about 60 years of age

  Late Adulthood - sixties or seventies until death
• Increasing number of studies indicate that in the US adults are happier as they age

  True or False?

  True
• Life satisfaction reaches a low point during adulthood

  True or False?

  True
• Biological age: a person’s age in terms of biological health
• Psychological age: individual’s adaptive capacities compared with those of other
• Social age: refers to connectedness with others/the social roles individuals adopt

  • Individuals who have better social relationships with others are happier and more likely to live longer than individuals who are lonely
• What are the three main developmental issues?

  Nature and Nurture, Stability & Change, Continuity & Discontinuity
• What are the four steps of the scientific method?

  1. Conceptualize a problem 2.Collect Research Information 3. Analyze the data 4. Draw Conclusions
• Natural Selection: the evolutionary process by which those individuals of a species that are best adapted are the ones that survive and reproduce
• Charles Darwin proposed that natural selection fuels evolution
• Adaptive Behavior: behavior that promotes an organism’s survival in its natural habitat
• Evolutionary Psychology emphasizes the importance of adaption, reproduction and “survival of the fittest” in shaping behaviour
• Humans take longer to become reproductively mature than any other mammal

  True or False?

  True
• Paul Baltes - Natural Selection primarily operates during the first half of life

  • Decrease with age
  • Reproductive Decline
  • Need for Culture-based resources increase (medical technology, social support)
• Criticisms of Evolutionary Psychology:

  • One-sided > sees social behavior as strictly the product of evolved biology
  • Not adequately valuing social/environmental factors
  • Relies on after-the-fact explanations
  • Cannot be tested scientifically
• Genes: units of hereditary information

  • short segments of DNA
  • Help cells reproduce themselves
  • assembling proteins
• Proteins: the building blocks of cells/the regulators that direct the body’s processes
• Human Genome Project: the complete genetic content of our cells, which includes developmental information used for creating proteins that contribute to the making of a human organism
• Linkage Analysis: goal is to discover the location of genes in relation to a marker gene

  • often used to search for diesease-related genes
• methylation: tiny atoms attach themselves to the outside of a gene

  • Makes the gene more or less capable of receiving/responding to biochemical signals from the body > behavior of the gene (not its structure) is changed
• Susceptibility genes: genes that make the individual more vulnerable to specific diseases/accelerated aging
• Longevity genes: genes that make the individual less vulnerable to certain diseases/more likely to live to an older age
• Genotype: a person’s genetic heritage

  • actual genetic material
• Phenotype: the way an individual’s genotype is expressed in observed and measurable characteristics
• Mitosis: a process in which the cell’s nucleus (including the chromosomes) duplicates itself and the cell divides
• Meiosis: a process in which a cell of the testes (in men) or ovaries (in women) duplicates its chromosomes but then divides twice >> forms four cells

  • Each of the four have only half of the genetic material of the parent cell
  • By the end of meiosis >> each egg/sperm has 23 unpaired chromosome
• A recessive gene exerts its influence ONLY if the two genes of a pair are both recessive
• If you inherit a recessive gene from only one parent you may never know you carry the gene True or false?

  True
• X linked inheritance

  • Males only have one x-chromonsome, so there is no backup copy to counter the harmful gene and therefore may carry an x-linked disease
  • Females have a second chromosome, because of this they are not likely to carry the disease - Females that do have it are known as "carriers" and don't show any signs
• Fertilization: a process in which an egg and sperm fuse to create a single cell called a zygote
• Chromosomes - long strands of DNA that come in 23 pairs and are found in the nucleus of a cell
• DNA - complex molecule that contains genetic information, organized into chromosomes
• zygote: a single cell formed form fertilization of an egg and sperm (each has 23 chromosomes)
• Genetic Imprinting: Occurs when the expression of a gene has different effects depending on whether the mother or the father passed on the gene