Week 6

Question 1

What is the active child?

Answer 1

Children are active in their development (highly involved but highly limited), but are not the only active contributor

Children may make decisions about:

Preferences:

• Favourite people
• Favourite activities

Behaviours:

• Response to emotions
• Response to others
• Play

Values:

• Fairness
• Etiquette

Question 2

What is culture?

Answer 2

“A culture is a socially transmitted or socially constructed constellation consisting of practices, competencies*, ideas, schemas, symbols, values, norms, institutions, goals, constitutive rules, artefacts, and modifications of the physical environment.”(Fiske, 2002)

*thinking, reasoning, and problem solving.

• not limited to a nationality or ethnic group

practices = activities (food, clothes choices)

constitutive rules = fundamental rules (requirements of marriage)

artefacts = food, clothes, furniture etc

every child lives in a multicultural environment

Question 3

Describe Brofenbrenner’s Bioecological model

Answer 3

series of systems

system 1 = microsystem = activities and relationships the child directly interacts with = child and parent, peers, teachers

system 2 = mesosystem = connections of people around the child = events between parents and teachers, teachers and peers etc

system 3 = exosystem = social settings that do not directly involve the child but still influence the child’s development = parent’s workplace

system 4 = macrosystem = broader norms, values, customs, laws that larger society has = effect all different members

system 5 = chronosystem = time we live in can influence all other spheres

children do not exist in only one system, multi-dimensional

Question 4

Describe Kearin’s 1981 visuo-spatial experiment

Answer 4

Visual spatial memory in Australian Aboriginal children of desert regions.

488 adolescents (55 boys, 33 girls)* 44 Indigenous (Western Desert, WA)* 44 European descent (Perth, WA)Each participant completed 4 memory “games”. Correct & incorrect pieces recorded.

Artefactual, different (20)– e.g., knife, eraser, thimble, dice, ring, scissors, matchbox. normal in urban life (should be easiest with European children)

• Natural, different (20)– e.g., feather, rock, bark, leaf, small skull, wildflowers (should be easiest for Aboriginal children)
• Artefactual, same (12)– e.g., unlabelled bottles that vary in shape, size, colour, age. natural environment
• Natural, same (12)– e.g., small rocks that vary in shape, size, colour, texture. .“Look hard at all the things and try to remember where they all are”
  [typical Indigenous approach]… sat very still while viewing an array, and showed no signs of overt or covert vocalization. Their reconstructions were characterized by careful deliberation and a steady rate of progress. Most children were very efficient and few location changes were made. Many sat, at some stage, holding an object and carefully scanning a section of the board before finally placing it in position.

[typical European approach]… moved about on the seat, picked up objects or turned them over…. [They] made many changes in location of objects. Many began there construction with great haste, pushing the first four or five items quickly into position. There tended then to be a slowing down, and for the later items changes in item position tended to increase.

“The specific environmental experience of the [Indigenous] children facilitated the acquisition of perceptual & visual memory skills, and maintained their predominance over the verbal coding skills demanded by European society and the school system.”

Question 5

Describe cultural influences on Problem solving (srudy)

Answer 5

Cultural Ideas:

• Folk lore
• Fairy tales
• Parables, fables

Analogous sources

Novel experience:

• Moral dilemma
• Adaptive task
• Unfamiliar decision

Insight problems (solving problem in new way)
Had problems where fairy tales from cultures could provide solutions. people did better when their cultural influences were used
Limitations:

• Influence of cross-ethnic experiences
• Treated culture as ethnicity
• Insight problems must be novel

Strengths:

• Approach to measuring cultural “ideas” (tales)
• Approach to measuring decision-making (problems)

Question 6

Discuss nature and nurture

Answer 6

nature: heredity, genetics, cells, evolutionart behaviour, biological systems
nurture= envrionment, learning, peers, culture
emphasise relationship between person and environment

Question 7

How does developmental diversity occur?

Answer 7

Developmental diversity results from the close and continual interplay of genes and experience.

Three key elements:

• Genotype: the genetic material one person inherits;
• Phenotype: the observable expression of the genotype;
• Environment: all other aspects other than the genetic material itself.

Question 8

Discuss the first of 5 fundamental relationships for child development

1.Parent’s Genotype-Child’s Genotype

Answer 8

mendel, dominant and recessive

Question 9

Discuss second relationship for child development
2. genotype - phenotype

Answer 9

child phenotype expression of genotype
BB Bb etc

Question 10

Discuss third relationship for child development
3. Environment-Gene Expression

Answer 10

Impact of environment on child’s genotype expressions

Epigenetics

• gene expression changes due to environment
• without changing the genetic code (i.e., genotypes, DNA)
• e.g., mother rat’s grooming behaviour

changes baby rat’s gene expression

re: aggression, stress.

• events in ancestors’ lives can have ongoing effects on current lives

Question 11

Discuss fourth relationship for child development
4. Environment-phenotype

Answer 11

Impact of environment on

child’s phenotype.

• Life decisions
• Availability of options (e.g. resources danger, nutrition etc.)
  Parental contribution to environment

Manner of interaction, home environment, experiences they arrange, encouragement for particular behaviours and attitudes.

How do childhood experiences (maltreatment) & genetics (MAO-A) affect antisocial behaviour?
Dubedin Study, Mr Shaw
Participants

• Approx. 500 males
• Aged 3 to 26

Measuring:

• Childhood maltreatment
• MAO-A level
• Antisocial behaviour
  found that as maltreatment as child increased, level of MAOA decreased

Question 12

Discuss fifth relationship for child development
5. Environment=phenotype

Answer 12

The child shapes their own

environments.

• Passive: Children engage in activities that encouraged by others.
• Active: Children seek out environmental niches that are most compatible with their predisposition.
• Evocative: Children’s attributes affect how others interact with them.

Question 13

Discuss relationship between nature and nurture

Answer 13

G & E interaction:

• How? (What does the interaction look like?)

Through interactions between the genotype, phenotype, and environment:
GENOTYPE (parent)  GENOTYPE (child)
GENOTYPE (child)  PHENOTYPE (child)
ENVIRONMENT  PHENOTYPE (child)
PHENOTYPE (child)  ENVIRONMENT

Question 14

Discuss heritability (+ how to calculate)

Answer 14

The proportion of variability in the population that is attributable to genetic differences.
no. of genetic variations/total (genetic and environmental) variation

Question 15

discuss 2 strategies to assess heritability

Answer 15

• selective breeding
• family studies

Question 16

discuss family studies and the 2 kinds

Answer 16

adoptive:
adopted children
family studies: twins, identical or fraternal
conc: no people are the same, even if they are twins (see notion lecture 13 for more details)