Final Exam Study Guide for Psychology

• On the day you were born, you had the most brain cells you would ever have (28 billion in uterus). But, neurons were not well connected (the synaptic connections grow)
• More neural connections as we age (adults: 300 trillion synaptic connections). Partially by genes, but also experience.
• Puberty: pruning process- unused neural conections lost and used connections strengthened.

Association Areas: parietal, occipital, temporal, and frontal lobes (planning, judgement)

• The frontal lobes don't fully develop connections to other areas of brain (ex: amygdala) until early mid-twenties.
• Why?: They lack myelinated connections
• The amygdala is part of the limbic system, so if it's not connected to the amygdala then fear and aggression will take over. (Moms say teens act the way they do because the frontal lobe is not fully processed.)

• As youngsters we're completely dependent on our caregivers.
• It was advantageous for infants and youngsters in our evolutionary past to form strong emotional bonds with caregivers. This should aid survival and reproduction.
• Ex: John Bowlby

John Bowlby

• British Psychologist
• Influenced by Psychoanalysis
• Institutionalized children "Failed to thrive" (kids in orphanages, kids not loved, and failed to thrive, got into trouble)

Attachment Theory

• Basic Point 1: The attachment system is an evolved behavioral system in humans and primates.
• Basic Point 2: The primary goal of the attachment system is to maintain proximity between infants and their attachment figures.
• Basic Point 3: The attachment figure offers both a haven of safety (when an infant gets scared, they can go to their security figure) and a secure base (having attachment figure present so they can explore)

Harry Harlow

• American Psychologist
• Noticed that when infant monkeys were separated from their parentsthey would get attached to their blanket.

The Harlow Monkey Study

• Harlow created single cages with both cloth surrogate (soft and warm cloth) and wire-mesh mothers.
• Independent Variable: 4 newborn monkeys in cage with cloth mother who provided food vs. 4 in cage where wire-mesh mother provided food.
• Dependent Variable 1: How much time on cloth mother?
• Dependent Variable 2: How much time on wire-mesh mother?

- The attachment system is driven by physical contact, and becomes activated when they're scared.

One of two things:

1. Extremely fearful
2. Aggressive

Human infants differ in patterns of attachment. Attachment researchers believe that early parent-child interactions shape the attachment patterns in the child.

• How consistently does the infant receive comfort from parents?

Secure Attachment: (most people- 60%)

• Develop because caregivers are consistently there to provide comfort.
• Learned to associate love with caregiver.

Insecure Attachments: Parents not there consistently so it leads the child to get mixed feelings about the caregiver.

• Anxious-ambivalent: (still cry even if comforted)
• Avoidant: (disengage with caregiver)- don't get all that upset, can't be calmed down with caregiver.

- Mary Ainsworth:student of Bulbes, teaches developmental psychology (1970)

- Strange Situation: A way we can categorize infants (secure or insecure)

• Mother and infant come to lab filled with toys
• A stranger enters
• The mother leaves
• The reunion: (the mother enters back- this process happens twice). This part of the procedure is very importantto categorizing the infant and attachment style.

1. Securely Attached: They can be comforted almost immediately
2. Insecurely Attached:                                        (Anxious-Ambivalent)- can't be calmed easily, pushes away, resistant.                                          ( Avoidant)- won't acknowledge comfort, almost don't care, looking down, ignoring.     

r=.3

Slightly positive correlation. Your categorization is consistent throughout life.

In the United States about 60% of infants are secure, 25% are avoidant, and 15% are anxious-ambivalent.

Temparement of the child does influence the love he/she gets from the parent.

- van de Boom (1994)

• Identified irritable infants and trained the mothers to be sensative to these infants.
• Identified infant-mother pairs where the infant was highly irritable; 6-month old infants.
• Independent Variable: Mother sensitivity training (intervention group) vs. didn't get training (control group)
• Dependent Variable: Categorized whether the infant was securely or insecurely attached at 12 months.

Irritable children can become insecure.

Early attachment experiences help create an internal working model of attachment

• A set of expectations or beliefs about the availability and responsiveness of their primary caregiver.
• Help the child answer this question: "Can I count on my attachment figure to be there for me?"

                          1. Secure: "Yes"

                          2. Avoidant: "No"

                          3. Anxious-ambivalent: "Maybe"

- Secure: "I find that it is relatively easy to get close to others and comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don't worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me."

- Anxious-ambivalent: "I find that others are reluctant to get close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn't really love me or won't want to stay with me. I want to get very close to my partner and this sometimes scares people away."

- Avoidant: "I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; I find it diffiult to trust them completely, and difficult to allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous whenever anyone gets close, and often, others want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being."

- Secure: are more likely to view God as loving compared to avoidant.

- Avoidant: (compared to secure) are less likely to be committed to a religious tradition. Report being agnostic (don't know if God exists) or atheist (don't beileve in God).

- Anxious-ambivalent: more likely to report elevated levels of glossolalia (speaking in tongues; made up language; need an emotional expression of faith to feel good).

Jean Piaget (Swiss developmental psychologist)

• Cognitive Development: how the mind develops in stages
• He was interested in measuring children's intelligence and categorizing changes he observed in children's cognition
• Believed that children's cognitive abilities developed in stages from infancy to adulthood

- Sensorimotor: doesn't have language ability quite yet. Like to put things in their mouth.

• Object Permanence: When child understands that an object continues to exist when they don't see it. Awareness that object continues to exist.
• According to Piaget, infants around 6 months of age develop object permanence. He tested this by covering an object and observed whether or not the infant looked for the object after it was covered.

- Preoperational

• Egocentrism: kids can't take another person's perspective. Don't have theory of mind.

Renee Baillargeon

• Developmental Psychologist
• Further tested Piaget's studies
• Wanted to test if infants younger than 6 months could understand object permanence.

Study

• 21 infants (3-6 months old)
• 3 separate trials
• Independent Variable: Possible (didn't pass through box) vs. Impossible (box seemed to diappear)
• Dependent Variable: How much time did the infants look at the event?

What did the study say?

• Object Permanence exists earlier than 6 months.
• Infants stared longer at the Impossible, so they had a sense of object permanence.

At what point does the child understand that people see the world like they do?

-Grouping Variable: 3 year olds (more egocentric) vs. 4-5 year olds

• Would be asked what they thought was in the crayon box.

- Outcome Variable: What would the child say who had never seen what was in the box?

• 3 year olds: Their perception was limited. 
• 4-5 year olds: Would say there were crayons.

-Conservation: the principle that quantity remains the same despite chenges in its shape.

-Water conservation test: developed by Piaget

• Start with equal amounts of water in 2 glasses and asked kids if  they both had the same amount of water.
• Then they would pour the water of one of the glasses into another shaped container (both still had same amount of water) and would ask them again.

                             - 4-5 year old: would say that one of the containers had more water than the other, even though they had the same amount.

                             - 8 year old: said they had the same amount of water.

-The self is socially constructed (ex: boys in blue, girls in pink)

• Who you are as an individual is defined by the culture you find yourself in.

When, developmentally, does a sense of self start to develop?

• 18  months-2 years old: child starts to realize that they are different from others.

-The Rouge Test: put a dot on their forehead and put them in front of a mirror.

• Younger than 18 months: they'll reach out to the mirror or look behind it. They don't recognize themselves in the mirror.
• Older than 18 months: Start to realize the dot is on them

The self internalizes cultural standards of value

• ex: you are taught to believe that being a nice person is important and internally you come to believe this.

What is the function of the self?

• When the self is active, it guides behavior according to internalized standards or value. It helps you behave appropriately.
• ex: Halloween Study

- Beaman, Klentz, Diener, & Svanum, 1979

- When the self is active, people follow the rules and behave appropriately

- Study:

• 363 children who were not with their parents
• 18 homes
• Grouping Variable: Age (2-13 years old)
• Independent Variable:  Mirror vs. No Mirror behind the candy.
• House owner would say, "You may take 1 of the candies, I have to go back to work in another room."
• Dependent Variable: What percentage of children took more than 1 candy bar? (transgression: commiting a sin and might feel guilty)

Are personality traits stable over time?

-During infancy & adulthood

• Infancy: temperament (person’s characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity)
• Adulthood: The Big Five personality traits (Conscientiousness didn't really change)

A concept of framework that organizes and interprets information.

• ex: A young child may develop a schema for a horse- large, has hair, four legs, and a tail. When the child encounters a cow, he/she might initially call it a horse since it fits in the schema. 

Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas/ideas. Assimilation is the easiest method to adapt to new experiences, according to Piaget. 

• ex: A chef learning a new cooking teechnique.
• ex: Sweet girl that's your neighbor throws a snowball at your car. You might think it's rude at first but you  think that she might have seen a classmate doing it. You're not revising your opinion about the girl, just adding new new information to what you already know.

Adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information. Old ideas replaced by new information. 

• ex: You reevaluate your opinion about the girl. 
• ex: Referring back to the horse and cow example. The child develops a new schema for the cow. 

- Sensorimotor Stage: (birth-2 years old)

• Infant trying to make sense of world.
• Object Permanence (ex: Peek-a-boo)

- Preoperational Stage: (2-7 years old)

• Egocentrism: unable to take the point of view of other people.
• Conservation: water experiment.

- Concrete Operational Stage: (7-11 years old)

• Reversibility: child might recognize the her dog id a Labrador, that a Labrador is a dog, and that a dog is an animal.

- Formal Operational Stage: (12-adulthood)

• Ability to think about abstract concepts.
• Problem-solving

A newly emerging ability to evaluate people as unfamiliar and possibly threatening helps protect babies 8 months or older.

• ex: When a stranger reaches out to an infant, the infant might cry and look for a familiar face to hold onto.

An optimal period early in the life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development.

• ex: When a duckling is hatched, the first thing they see move is usually his mother. From then on, he will follow her and her alone.

1. Authoritarian: parents impose rules and expect obedience. Failure to follow rules often results in punishment. Fail to explain the reason for rules. If asked, parent might say, "Because I said so".
2. Permissive: parents submit to their children's desires. Few demands and little punishment. Avoid confrontation and are lenient. Friend more than a parent.
3. Authoritative: both demanding and responsive. Explain the reasons for the rules. Encourage open discussion when making rules and allow exceptions. Willing to listen to questions. More forgiving than punishing. Generally linked to positive behaviors, like strong self-esteem and self-competence.