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• "Nature vs. Nurture" debate

  Debate between whether genetics or environment/upbringing has a greater impact on the development of a person
• Nature


  • Genetics overrules
• Nurture


  • Environment overrules
• Research designs in developmental psychology research

  • Cross-sectional: observing different people over the same period of time
  • Longitudinal: observing the same people/person over an extended period of time
• Longitudinal research suffers from high costs and attrition
• Stages of prenatal development

  • Zygote: fertilized egg
  • Germinal: ½ week (mass of clumped cells that divide and multiply)
  • Embryo: 2/8 week (development of skeleton, organs, and limbs)
  • Fetus: 9 weeks (recognizably human)
• Teratogen


  Environmental factors that can pose a negative impact on the development of the baby (smoking, drinking, STRESS)
• Development of motor skills among babies


  • Sitting
  • Crawling
  • Standing
  • Cruising
  • Walking
  • Running
• Babies are born with a set of automatic reflexes, like sucking and grasping
• Assimilation


  The linear acquiring of information
• Accommodation


  When information is learned that contradicts with previous info and new info needs to be accommodate into a new schema
• Stages of cognitive development (Piaget)


  • Sensorimotor stage: Birth to 2 yrs; no object permanence. Mainly immediate physical experiences
  • Preoperational stage: 2 to 7 yrs; can make mental representations of experience but can't do mental operations or read minds
  • Concrete operational stage: 7 to 11 yrs; can do mental operations but only for physical things
  • Formal operational stage: 11 to adult; hypothetical reasoning, abstraction
• Mozart effect


  It appeared that those who listened to 10 mins of classical music performed better on a (spatial reasoning) task; it was falsified because those who didn't enjoy classical music were probably upset that they had to just stare at a wall for a while
• Fluid intelligence


  Abstract thinking and logical problem solving; decreases with age
• Crystallized intelligence


  Accumulated knowledge; continues to increase forever
• Konrad Lorenz's finding on imprinting


  • The geese were loyal to the being that they were mostly around for the 36 hr period after birth; adopting after 6 months hinders the depth of the bond
• Harry Harlow's finding on attachment behaviors


  • Bonds more often grow towards that which gives comfort instead of nourishment; contact-comfort; positive emotions that come from touch
• Mary Ainsworth's strange situation paradigm


  A child is left without their guardian for a moment and their reaction to their return was categorized into 4 different attachment styles: secure, insecure-anxious, insecure-dismissive, disorganized
• The strange situation paradigm appears to be reliant on cultures; mainly applies to individualistic cultures as collectivistic children spend less time apart from their mother
• The strange situation paradigm also differs for dads
• The three causes of personality

  • Genetic
  • Shared environmental
  • Nonshared environmental
• Genetic factors play the biggest role in shaping/determining one's personality
• Freud's personality theory components

  • Id
  • Ego
  • Superego
• Id


  The primitive basic needs advocate
• Ego


  The peacemaker between the id and superego that implements rationality and logic
• Superego


  The morality component and "oughts"
• Defence mechanisms (Freud)


  They're supposed to minimize anxiety unconsciously
• Alfred Adler


  • Were motivated by the desire to be superior; and we often have an inferiority complex; older, middle, youngest dynamic
• Carl Jung


  • Collective memories from our ancestors; universal archetypes for stories; introversion and extraversion
• Karen Horney


  • Women aren't inferior because of penis envy, but because they are groomed to be dependent on men from childhood
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs

  • Physiological needs
  • Safety
  • Love/belonging
  • Esteem
  • Self-actualization
• Carl Rogers


  FREE WILL to develop into our ideal self; battle with congruence and incongruence to our ideal self
• Internal vs. external locus of control


  Your belief that you can/can't change your situation
• Differences among humanists, behaviorists and psychodynamic theorists

  • Behavioural attributes personality to learning history, conditioning and genetics
  • Humanists focus on self-actualization and the will to improve
  • Psychodynamic focus on the unconscious mind and early childhood (Freud)
• Big 5 personality model traits

  • Openness
  • Conscientiousness
  • Extraversion
  • Agreeableness
  • Neuroticism
• Similar Big 5 personality traits are seen across cultures but at different percentages
• In collective cultures, openness and extraversion are more dog-like, while conscientiousness and neuroticism are more cat-like
• Walter Mischel's marshmallow study


  • 4 yr old kids have very short amounts of discipline- 1 minute; need instant gratification; self-control abilities linked to decreased addictive behaviors
• Individualism vs. collectivism


  Cultural differences in personality traits and behaviors
• Projective tests


  Asks for interpretation of ambiguous stimuli hoping that people project their personality onto the stimuli; very poor evaluation