PS 101
General Psychology
Midterm Exam
2024
Definitions
● Developmental psychology: study of changes over lifespan in multiple ways: in physiology,
cognition, emotion, and social behavior
○ Not just in children, it really is for all ages (whole lifespan)
○ People can study this by cross sectional studies or longitudinal
● Nature versus nurture debate:
○ Not really a debate anymore: we now know that both play an important part and we need to
understand BOTH
Prenatal Environment
● Hormones are important especially in prenatal environment
○ The mother’s thyroid needs to produce sufficient amount of hormones, otherwise fetus can be
affected and show lower intelligence
● The emotional state of mother can also affect fetus and lead to developmental cognition
problems! (due to release of cortisol)
● Teratogens (environmental agents that cause damage)
○ Mix of nature and nurture
○ Flu vaccines: pregnant women have priority to get flu vaccines because her getting the flu can
be more detrimental to a fetus than to another adult
○ Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders
■ Drinking alcohol while pregnant can lead to birth defects
■ This is the umbrella category that includes the most severe form: fetal alcohol syndrome
■ In US they recommend that pregnant women drink NO alcohol at all
● (A little may be okay, but putting a firm line is best and binge drinking is the worst for fetus)
Developmental Milestones
● These are not actually learned behaviors, you don’t need to be taught to do these actions (like
walking): as long as you have the abilities to walk, you will walk at some point
○ Different cultural aspects can change when these developmental milestones occur
■ Example: in cultures when baby is held all the time may learn to lift head up earlier as opposed
to if he’s lying down all the time
Brain Development
● There are certain actions that you don’t need to teach a baby to do: basic reflexes
○ These are thought to exist from primal reflexes
● Examples:
○ Grasping reflex
■ Grasp anything that their hands touch (like your finger)--thought to be a primal survival reflex--
grasp a tree branch
○ Rooting reflex
■ They will suck on anything that touches their lips and this is adaptive so that they can feed
properly
,● Myelination
○ Process of myelin developing
○ This protects neuronal axons and increases conduction speed
○ Occurs in different locations at different stages of development
○ The connections between prefrontal cortex and other brain functions develop later in life (25
years of age)
■ Not that the prefrontal cortex is not developed--it’s that the MYELIN here is not developed
● Synaptic pruning
○ Getting rid of unimportant connections and strengthening important connections
○ This is a very important developmental process (this death is actually a bad thing)--allows us to
get rid of unimportant connections and brain to be more efficient
○ This is what can lead to synesthesia: the crossing of two senses (like seeing numbers in specific
colors)
● You can have a severely reduced brain size if you don’t have proper environment
○ This is result of over-pruning because it’s not getting proper social input etc.
○ Neglected child has a much smaller brain due to living in orphanage with not enough staff, not
enriched, poor nutrition
○ If you then take this 3 year old and put him in enriched environment he will grow new
connections and kind of reverse this pruning process, but the older you get, the harder it is to
reverse this process because brain is not as plastic anymore (neuroplasticity)
● Sensitive (critical) periods
○ Time period when specific skills develop most easily
■ Past this you won’t be able to learn specific things anymore (more controversial)
○ Most common example is language: much easier to learn a new language as a kid then as an
adult--it is possible to do as an adult, but much harder
○ You will never have a perfect accent if you learn a new language as an adult, but if you learn it
as a kid, you have a stronger ability to distinguish sounds
Attachment
● Emotional attachment: strong connection between child and caregiver that exists over time
● Bonding is an adaptive trait: provides protection and increases chance for survival and passing
genes to next generation
● This also has a sensitive learning period
● Fundamental need of infant is an emotional bond to caregiver
● Men and women will intuitively (naturally, automatically) respond to babies in a high pitch voice
and make exaggerated facial expressions and babies will respond by maintaining eye contact
● Imprinting
○ Sensitive period when young animals become strongly attached to a nearby adult
○ So normally ducklings will imprint on mother duck, but if mother is not there and a dog or humanis
there, the ducklings will imprint on the dog or human
○ Often, touch or contact is very significant in building this bond
● It was thought that attachment happened only because caregiver gave food and gave protection
(rather than emotional connection)
○ Video: Harlow Monkey experiment
,■ Baby was nursed on wire mother
■ Next to the wire mother is a cloth mother (stuffed animal basically) and monkey would feed on
the wire mother, but then would go straight to cloth monkey because it would provide comfort
and emotion
■ Showed that it is not just food that monkey loves, it actually is the comfort
■ Next experiment: had a scary metal monkey that made loud sounds and showed it to baby
monkey and baby ran away screaming to its cloth mother
■ Third experiment: put baby monkey in unfamiliar room with lots of foreign objects and without
any mother in room, monkey didn’t run towards anything--monkey stayed still
● Repeated experiment with wire mother in room (this baby was nursed on wire mother) and
monkey does not run towards it--it provides no comfort--monkey stayed still
● Repeated a third time with cloth mother in room and then monkey ran straight towards it and
immediately relaxed and fear disappeared. He then left the mother after staying close for a little
and was able to then explore and experience curiosity and interact with environment--this
showed secure attachment
■ This showed that monkey needs the actual comfort and security of a mother rather than just
something to feed him--this was a novel finding!
● Secure attachment and insecure attachment
○ Video: Ainsworth used the strange situation test: putting human in novel environment to look at
how secure the attachment is between mother and child
○ Longitudinal experiment: at one year old and then interview about the experience at 21 years
old
○ Baby cries when mother leaves the room
■ With mother out of the room, the child had no interest in the toys and was only interested in the
fact that the mother was out of the room and then when mother is back in the room baby is ableto
calm down and then play with toys in the room
■ This is an example of secure attachment (majority of infants) (similar to baby monkey
experiment)
○ Baby cries when mother leaves the room
■ When mother comes back, baby is still sad and sullen
■ Mother returning does not fix problem and baby is still crying or angry
■ Indicates insecure attachment--baby may think that mother is inconsistent at providing comfort
● Could also avoid eye contact
○ Baby does not care when mother leaves room
■ Ambivalent attachment and maybe even defiant or aggressive
● Separation anxiety
○ Becoming very anxious when separated from caregiver
● These attachments goes for fathers and other caregivers as well
● These attachments are also related to better social relations later in life that are important
● Oxytocin
○ Hormone that plays role in maternal tendencies, feelings of social acceptance and bonding, and
sexual gratification
■ When mother holds baby for first time
■ Breast feeding
, ■ Good interaction with friend
■ These behaviors and actions all increase bonding and are correlated with large release of
oxytocin
■ Recently: studies of using oxytocin to treat autism to make them more social or unrelated to
autism, looking at if oxytocin can increase altruistic behaviors of adults
Parenting Style
● Authoritative
○ Expect child to obey rules and follow what parent said but also allow children to be independent
○ When punishing child, they give explanation for punishment
○ Forgiveness is often more common than punishment in this style
○ Parents set limits and demand maturity
● Authoritarian
○ Also expect child to obey rules and follow what parent said
○ But often will not explain why child is not getting a punishment “Because I said so” is a very
classic example of authoritarian parenting--child does not necessarily understand why they are
getting punished
● Permissive
○ Few expectations
○ Nurturing, warm affect
○ Rare punishment
○ Few rules
○ This is not a bad thing, but few rules can result in kid not adjusting properly in an environment
where there are rules, like in school
● Neglectful
○ Parents will give basic needs, like food, shelter, clothing
○ But they will not be very involved in the child’s life
● All of these can happen in any range of socioeconomic status
Research Techniques
● You can’t ask babies questions, so you use preferential looking technique
● Researcher shows infant two things and if infant looks at one longer, the more interesting they
think it is
● Researchers can create a response preference--whether a baby can distinguish between
twothings--based on habituation
○ They show something repeatedly and then show something new, and question is whether the
baby can distinguish between the two images (or colors etc.)
○ If baby can distinguish that is something new, then baby will look at it longer, otherwise baby will
treat it as the same thing
● Visual perception
○ Assessing infant acuity (ability to distinguish between two things)
■ Displays a patch of gray on one side and then a black and white pattern on the other side (so it
appears gray) to see if baby can tell difference
■ Visual acuity is due to experience and practice and then also development of visual cortex etc.
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