5 Steps to a 5 AP Psychology, 2010-2011 Edition - Laura Lincoln Maitland [120]
9. A—Both Piaget and Kohlberg stressed the importance of changes in thinking in their developmental stages. For example, both recognized that egocentric young children see the consequences of their actions from their own perspectives.
10. A—Contact comfort. Harlow’s work with rhesus monkeys and surrogate mothers showed that even when food-deprived and anxious, monkeys preferred the terrycloth monkey to the wire monkey with food.
11. B—The authoritative style of parenting is seen as the “best” style for nurturing independent, responsible, and socially competent teens and adults.
12. D—Alcohol. The child’s mother likely drank alcohol throughout the pregnancy, producing the baby born with fetal alcohol syndrome. The effects of alcohol on prenatal brain development can be devastating.
13. D—Both reinforcement and observing and imitating role models like parents contribute to the development of gender identity, according to some (behavioral) social learning theorists.
14. B—Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory. Vygotsky advocated continuous cognitive growth. Vygotsky believed that with a mentor’s help, children can progress more rapidly through the same milestones they would achieve without a mentor’s help.
15. D—Formal operational level. Kohlberg modeled his stages of moral development after Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. Those in Piaget’s formal operational stage have developed the ability to think abstractly and, thus, have the ability to move to the post-conventional moral thinking of Kohlberg’s stages 5 and 6.
Rapid Review
Developmental psychology—study of physical, intellectual, social, and moral changes across the lifespan from conception to death.
Three controversies:
Nature–nurture controversy—deals with the extent to which heredity and the environment each influence behavior.
Continuity–discontinuity controversy—deals with the issue of whether development is a gradual, continuous process or a sequence of separate stages.
Stability–change controversy—deals with the issue of whether or not personality traits present during infancy endure throughout the lifespan.
Research methods of developmental psychologists include experiments, naturalistic observations, correlational studies, and case studies. These designs are conducted to assess change over time:
cross-sectional—different age groups are tested at the same time.
longitudinal—same participants are tested multiple times with same or similar tests.
cohort sequential—combines cross-sectional and longitudinal to correct for cohort effect.
cohort effect—observed group differences based on the era when people were born and grew up, exposing them to particular experiences that may affect results of cross-sectional studies.
Physical development (quickest during prenatal development; second quickest during infancy; third quickest during adolescence):
Critical period—a time interval during which specific stimuli have a major effect on development that the stimuli do not produce at other times.
Prenatal development—period of development that begins with fertilization, or conception, and ends with birth.
• Zygote—a fertilized ovum with the genetic instructions for a new individual, normally contained in 46 chromosomes.
• Embryo—the developmental prenatal stage (from about 2 weeks through 2 months after fertilization) when most organ development begins.
• Fetus—the developing human organism from about 9 weeks after conception to birth when organ systems begin to interact; sex organs and sense organs become refined.
• Teratogen—harmful substances (drugs or viruses) during the prenatal period that can cause birth defects.
Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)—a cluster of abnormalities that occurs in babies of mothers who drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy, which includes low intelligence, small head with flat face, misshapen eyes,