Psych 315

1. Nature and Nurture

• 2. The Active Child
• (selective attention, solo language practice, pretend play, choose environments)

• 3. Continuity vs. Discontinuity
• 4. Mechanisms of Change

• 5. Sociocultural Factors
• (physical, social, economic, cultural, historical)

• 6. Individual Differences
• (genes, treatment from others, choice of environment, unique reactions to events)

7. Research & Children's Welfare

• 1. Interviews (structured & clinical)
• Pros - subjective, easy, inexpensive
• Cons - positively biased, inaccurate recall, inaccurate predictions, experimenter bias

• 2. Naturalistic Observation
• Pros - studies social interactions
• Cons - no control, observer influence, experimenter bias

3. Structured Observation (experimental & correlational)

• 1. Preferential Looking
• 2. Habituation
• 3. Violation of Expectation

4. Microgenetic

• 1. Parent's Phenotype - Child's Genotype
• (diversity due to: mutations, random assortment of genes, crossing over)

• 2. Child's Genotype - Child's Phenotype
• (multiple alleles, regulator genes, polygenic influence)

• 3. Child's Environment - Child's Phenotype
• ("norm of reaction")

4. Child's Phenotype - Child's Environment

An estimate of the proportion of measured variability on a given trait in a population:

• 1. applies to a popn. living in a particular environment at a particular period of time
• 2. reveals nothing about an individual
• 3. high heritability does not equal immutability
• 4. heritability reveals nothing about between-group differences

Assimilation, Accomodation, Equilibration

• 1. Sensorimotor Stage
• 2. Preoperational Stage
• 3. Concrete Operational Stage
• 4. Formal Operational Stage

• - simple reflexes
• - lack object permanence
• - deferred imitation
• - demonstrate A-not-B Error

• - learn symbolic representation; use conventional symbols
• - incapable of operations; can't understand conservation
• - centration
• - egocentrism

• - understand conservation
• - logical reasoning about concrete (but not abstract) objects
• - difficulty w/ scientific thinking

• - abstract, hypothetical thinking
• - scientific reasoning

• - continuous cognitive change
• - thinking occurs over time; behaviours involve multiple mental operations
• - cognitive growth due to: basic processes, use of strategies, content knowledge
• - processing speed increases due to: experience, brain develop., myelination

• - innate cognitive abilities due to evolution
• - emphasize modularity (physics, psychology, biology)

• - cognitive development thru interpersonal contact
• - children are products of culture

• 1. Zone of Proximal Development
• 2. Social Scaffolding
• 3. Joint Attention
• 3. Intersubjectivity
• 4. Social Referencing

• - children show deficits in perspective-taking
• - 4 stages of role-taking:

• 1. appreciate that others have diff. POVs
• 2. think about other's POV
• 3. systematically compare own POV to others'
• 4. understand others' POV by comparing it to 'generalized other'

- 6 steps in social problem-solving:

• 1. encode problem
• 2. interpret social cues
• 3. formulate goals
• 4. generate strategies
• 5. evaluate success of strategies
• 6. enact behaviour

• Microsystem
• Mesosystem
• Exosystem
• Macrosystem
• Chronosystem

• 1. Gender Identity
• 2. Gender Stability
• 3. Gender Constancy

• 1. Innate preference for same-sex peers
• 2. Find that same-sex play styles are more compatible
• 3. Develop gender knowledge
• 4. Peer pressure
• 5. Adult interactions w/ children

1. Displacement Task (Sally-Ann)

2. Unexpected Contents Task (Smarties box)

3. Appearance-Reality Task

• 1. Radical Shift Theory
• - children <4 are incapable of attributing false beliefs
• - hold a "copy theory" of the world; beliefs = reality

• 2. Processing Demands Theory
• - failure due to lack of processing resources (ie. memory, attention)
• - "curse of knowledge"