DEV PSYCH

• Developmental psychology


  The scientific study of changes that occur in human beings throughout their lives
• Characteristics of human development

  • Multidimensional
  • Lifelong
  • Multidirectional
  • Multidisciplinary
  • Multicontextual
• Multidimensional development


  • Physical, Cognitive, Psychosocial
• Discontinuous development


  Developmental change often occurs in distinct stages
• Continuous development


  Development is a more slow & gradual process
• Stage theorists


  • Freud's Psychosexual Stages
  • Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development
  • Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development
  • Erik Erikson
• Multidirectional development


  Humans change in many directions, showing gains in some areas and losses in others
• Multidisciplinary development


  Related to other applied fields like educational psychology, psychopathology, and forensic developmental psychology
• Multicontextual development


  Context (when and where we live) affects our actions, beliefs, and values
• Triarchic theory of intelligence

  Describes 3 types of intelligence: Analytical, Practical, Creative
• Cohort effect


  The impact of historical events and cultural climates on the values, priorities, and goals of a group of people born at the same time
• Generational cohorts


  • Builders (71+)
  • Baby Boomers (52-70)
  • Generation X (37-51)
  • Generation Y/Millennials (22-36)
  • Generation Z (7-21)
  • Generation Alpha (under 7)
• Socioeconomic status


  Identifies families and households based on their shared levels of education, income, and occupation
• Culture


  A blueprint or guideline shared by a group of people that specifies how to live, learned from parents, schools, churches, media, friends, and others
• Periods of development


  • Infancy
  • Childhood
  • Juvenile Era
  • Pre Adolescence
  • Early Adolescence
  • Late Adolescence
  • Adulthood
• Developmental theory


  A set of logically related concepts or statements that seek to describe, explain, and predict development
• Hypothesis


  An explanation or prediction that can be tested by further research
• Models of development


  • Mechanical (people react to environmental input)
  • Organismic (people actively set their own development in motion)
• Types of developmental change

  • Quantitative (change in number or amount)
  • Qualitative (discontinuous change marked by new phenomena)
• Behaviorism


  • Describes observed behavior as a predictable response to experience, considering development as reactive and continuous
  • Considers development as both reactive and continuous.
  • By reacting to conditions or aspects of their environment that they find pleasing, painful, or threatening.
• Classical conditioning(Ivan Pavlov)


  A type of learning where a response is elicited after repeated association with a stimulus
• Operant conditioning(BF Skinner)


  A type of learning where an individual learns from the consequences of their actions, with reinforcement and punishment
• Social learning theory(Albert Bandura)


  Observational Learning or Modeling - Suggests that people learn new behaviors by observing and imitating others, with emphasis on cognitive processes
• Cognitive stage theory(Jean Piaget)


  Views development as the product of children's attempts to understand and act upon their world, involving organization, adaptation, and equilibration
• Sociocultural theory(Lev Semenovich Vygotsky)


  Children learn collaboratively through social interaction and shared activities, with assistance from more advanced peers or adults
• Information-processing approach


  Explains cognitive development by analyzing the processes involved in making sense of incoming information and performing tasks effectively
• Bioecological theory(Urie Bronfenbrenner)


  The child is an active shaper of development, influenced by multiple environmental systems
• Evolutionary/sociobiological theory


  Explains the adaptive, or survival, value of behavior for an individual or species, influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution
• Heritability


  A statistic representing the proportion of phenotypic variance that is due to genetic differences
• Human Genome Project


  An effort to map the locations of human genes and understand their role in development, health, and illness
• Monozygotic (identical) twins


  Develop from a single zygote or fertilized egg that split apart
• Dizygotic (fraternal) twins


  Develop from two separate eggs or ova fertilized by two separate sperm
• Genotype


  The genetic complement, coded in DNA, inherited from parents
• Phenotype


  The expression of genes in behavioral traits that can be measured
• Dominant genes


  Express themselves in the phenotype even when paired with a different version of the gene
• Recessive genes


  Express themselves only when paired with a similar version of the gene
• Incomplete dominance


  When a dominant gene does not entirely suppress the recessive gene, resulting in a mix of traits
• Chromosomal abnormalities


  Occur when a child inherits too many or too few chromosomes, leading to physical or other abnormalities
• Trisomy 21 (Down syndrome)


  Caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21
• Sex-linked chromosomal abnormalities


  Occur in the sex chromosomes (pair 23), such as XXY (Klinefelter syndrome)