Nativism
The belief that abilities are innate and do not require experience to be acquired
Preformation
An extreme/outdated form of nativism
Children are mini adults and mini versions of who they will become
Empiricism
(Rosseau and Locke)
The belief that abilities are acquired via experience
Active vs Passive child
Passive: playing with toys and learning lessons, interacting with people around the, seeing how the people around act
active: choose what to pay attention to, choose who to do what with,
Ex: grit, there are things out of your control. You can have grit and still fail.
Continuous vs. discontinuous
physical development example. Continuous is that they are growing constantly, but discontinuous is growth spurts. Stages vs. slow development (conservation example)
Continuous is more quantitative, discontinuous is more qualitative
Factor vs. mechanism
Mechanism: A cognitive or biological process that results in change
Factor: Related to change in a way that moderates and impacts development but its casual/not the reason for the change
Reliability (consistency)
Interrater: amount of agreement in the observations of different raters who witness the same behavior
Test-Retest: the degree of similarity of a participants performance on two or more occasions
Validity (accuracy)
Internal: the degree to which effects observed within experiments can be attributed to the factor that the researcher is testing
External: the degree to which results can be generalized beyond the particulars of the research
Construct: the degree to which the variable is defined accurately and we can infer shit
Correlation versus causation
Dependent variable
Independent variable
Experimental controls versus control group
Random selection versus random assignment
Just some terms to know
Cross-sectional study
Longitudinal design
Microgenetic design
Cross-sectional study → participants of different ages are compared on a given behavior or characteristic over a short period
Longitudinal design → same participants are studied twice or more over a substantial length of time
Microgenetic design → same participants are studied repeatedly over a short period
Between vs within subjects
Between-subjects (or between-groups) study design: different people test each condition, so that each person is only exposed to a single user interface.
Within-subjects (or repeated-measures) study design: the same person tests all the conditions (i.e., all the user interfaces).
Frequency
Correlation
Causation
This should be easy
Gametes
Meoisis
Gametes: productive cells (sperm and egg) meet → form a zygote
Meiosis - cell division that produces gametes
Embryology
The study of prenatal development, starts at conception
Germinal Phase
0-2 weeks
Zygote
Implantation / twins
Dizygotic, the cells split happens preconception day 0
monozygotic idential twins are between 1-15 days
twins get 2 sacs, chrionic and amniotic
Embryonic Phase
3-8 weeks
Embryo
Organ development / hazards
Cephalocaudal development
sensitive period for teratogens (time when particular structure is most vulnerable)
Teratogens (examples and what does degree of harm depend on)
Cigs (SIDS), booze (deformities), bud
Degree of harm depends on Dose size Hereditary factors Other influences (additional teratogens) Age of fetus
Fun facts about baby development
Fetus - development
9 weeks - size of grape
12 weeks - relying on placenta
20 weeks - mom can feel movement, know sex
24 weeks - cant breath on own, development very important
36 weeks - finalizing lungs, putting on fat
38 weeks - full term
Babies learn shit in the womb
hearing: prefer mom’s voice and native tongue
taste: carrot juice bullshit
smell: amniotic fluid and show preferences
genotype
genetic makeup
phenotype
environment + genotype
endophenotypes
intermediate phenotypes (brain and nervous systems) that do not involve overt behavior)
Genotypes and their relationships
- Parent genotype → child genotype
Conception occurs when two gametes combine
Each gamete contains 23 chromosomes
46 total chromosomes in zygotes
Karyotype
Autosomes // sex chromosomes - Child genotype → child phenotype
Not all genes are expressed
Not all parts of your genotype become your phenotype
External factors can affect the switching on and off of genes
While most disorders are complex, some genetic abnormalities can be expressed with:
Dominant allele (ex. Huntington’s Disease)
Recessive allele (ex. Sickle cell anemia)
Some genetic abnormalities are sex-linked (ex. hemophilia)
Carried on x or y chromosomes
Some abnormalities affect entire chromosomes (ex. Down syndrome)
Extra chromosomes 21 - Child environment → child phenotype
It’s not just the genotype that affects the phenotype
Children who are predisposed to be impulsive will exhibit more negative outcomes if raised in a hostile environment than a loving one - Child phenotype → child environment
The active child : choose different experiences
Evoke different responses from others
Ex. how teachers react to others - Child environment → child genotype
Epigenetics
Genes can turn on and off (is expressed if it is free)
Environment determining which genes are on and off
Ex. Worker bees and queen bees
All bees have genetic potential to be the queen bee, fed to be queen bee
Identical twins can be dissimilar with different environments and experiences
Ex.
NN + SN - you can tell how a stressed mother affects the child
Findings → if you had a stressed mom = preterm birth yourself, weighted less etc
Methylation
behavior genetics
study of how variation in phenotype results from the combination of genes and environment
