PSY 2105 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Memory, Nervous System, Interaction
12 Oct 2018
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PSY 2105
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
PSY2105 Chapter 1 BACKGROUND AND THEORIES
Developmental Psychology:
• Branch of psychology devoted to the study of changes in behaviour and
abilities over the course of development
• Researchers examine these changes and why they occur
• Two basic goals:
o Description—to identify children’s behaviour at each point in
development
o Explanation—determining the cause and processes that produce
changes in behaviour from one point to the next (nature vs. nurture)
• Why study children?
• Period of rapid development: developmental research is focused on change,
childhood is a time of lots of change in many different areas (growth, social
interactions, language, memory etc.)
• Long term influences: experiences in early years have a strong and lasting
impact on development in later years
• Insight into complex adult processes: useful to examine behaviours from
early years to interpret behaviours in adulthood
• Real-World applications: research of children benefit in real world problems
such as poverty, illiteracy, drugs and crime. Also issues such as effects of
daycare, classroom teaching methods, disciplinary techniques
• Interesting subject matter: children are fascinating to study and are
interesting creatures
• Historical views of children?
• Ancient Rome/Greece: believed in the importance of education, also had
obscure norms for children. Infanticide for the
illegitimate/unhealthy/unwanted, severe punishments, bought/sold children
for work as well as brothels.
• Medieval/Renaissance: posed children as pure and innocent. The church took
in unwanted children and gave some education, abuse was still common.
Society started feeling responsibility for its youth.
• Early Theorists?
• John Locke: believed all children were born equal and at birth you are a blank
slate (tabula rasa). All knowledge only comes through experience and
learning. No such thing as innate behaviour, everything is derived from
upbringing and environment. Environmentalist point of view.
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau: (father of French romanticism) believed that
children were born with knowledge and ideas that unfolded naturally with
age. Development comes in predictable stages that are innately guided, any
knowledge that isn’t innate comes from interactions with environment and
exploration. Focused more solely on innate processes driving development,
coined the term nativism.
• Johann Gottfried Vin Herder: believed children develop through the
upbringing in a social environment, a group or community, a culture with its
own language and history. Believed in cultural diversity and cultural
relativism: belief that each culture should be examined and evaluated on its
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PSY2105 Chapter 1 BACKGROUND AND THEORIES
own terms. He placed importance on language and history of humankind.
Neither are passively absorbed by children. This is a very sociocultural
approach.
• Charles Darwin: believed in natural selection and survival of the fittest and
traits being passed down by parents to future generations. Led other
scientists to the theory of recapitulation: an early biological notion, that the
individual repeats the development of the species. Was one of the first to do a
baby biography: a method of studying the development of your own child.
• Pioneers of child psych?
• Stanley Hall: (father of child psych) conducted and published the first
systematic studies of children in north America. He trained the first
generation of developmental researchers, first president of the APA, and also
invited Freud to America for the first time
• James Mark Baldwin: first academic psychologist in Canada set up the first
psychology lab in Canada (U of T). He began research programs studying
infant development employing the baby biography to see development of his
own infants. Believed development happened through a series of stages, and
stressed the interaction of hereditary and environment.
• John B. Watson: He was a zeitgeist: the spirit of the times, or the ideas
shared by most scientists during a given period. Adopted Locke’s beliefs of
environment, his new approach was called Behaviourism: human
development results primarily from conditioning and learning processes.
Believed that psychology research should only be based on observable
subject matter (observable behaviour), not internal experiences. The basics
of behaviourism are that changes in behaviour result primarily from
conditioning processes. Believed learning occurs through association
(Pavlov). All behaviours start as simple reflexes, then become conditioned
stimuli based on the environment.
• Arnold Gesell: established Yale clinic of child development in 1911 and spent
almost 50 years studying the development of a typical child. Believed that
child development is guided by biological processes, therefore believed that
motor skill development follows very typical pattern; environment plays a
minor role. It may affect timing of stages but never the order of it. Described
these stages simply as maturation: biological processes assumed by some
theorists to be primarily responsible for human development. Gesell
conducted first large scale experiment to see children’s development.
Revealed a huge amount of uniformity between kids, pattern is very
consistent, (rolling, crawling, walking, running etc.) He developed statistical
norms (development timetable describing usual order or stages). Gesell
pioneered the use of film cameras to record behaviour, developed one-way
screens, and photographic dome.
• Freud: Stanley Hall invited Freud to America, he introduced the concept of
psychoanalysis. 2 major contributions: In clinical psychology his model of
personality and psychoanalysis are still used in psychotherapy. Also his
stages theory of psychosexual development. Freudian developmental theory
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Document Summary
Insight into complex adult processes: useful to examine behaviours from early years to interpret behaviours in adulthood: real-world applications: research of children benefit in real world problems such as poverty, illiteracy, drugs and crime. Also issues such as effects of daycare, classroom teaching methods, disciplinary techniques. Interesting subject matter: children are fascinating to study and are interesting creatures: historical views of children, ancient rome/greece: believed in the importance of education, also had obscure norms for children. Infanticide for the illegitimate/unhealthy/unwanted, severe punishments, bought/sold children for work as well as brothels: medieval/renaissance: posed children as pure and innocent. The church took in unwanted children and gave some education, abuse was still common. John locke: believed all children were born equal and at birth you are a blank slate (tabula rasa). All knowledge only comes through experience and learning. No such thing as innate behaviour, everything is derived from upbringing and environment.
