LIFESPAN DEVELOPMENT FINAL EXAM ACTUAL
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS GRADED A+
✔✔Lev Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory of development - ✔✔Cognitive theory that
emphasizes how culture and social interaction guide cognitive development. Cognitive
development involves learning to use the inventions of society, such as language,
mathematical systems, and memory strategies. Thus in one culture, children might learn
to count with the help of a computer; in another, they might learn by using beads.
Children's social interaction with more-skilled adults and peers is indispensable to their
cognitive development. Through this interaction, they learn to use the tools that will help
them adapt and be successful in their culture.
✔✔Information processing theory of development - ✔✔Emphasizes that individuals
manipulate information, monitor it, and strategize about it. Central to this theory are the
processes of memory and thinking. Thinking is information processing, when individuals
perceive, encode, represent, store, and retrieve information, they are thinking. Robert
Siegler emphasizes that an important aspect of development is learning good strategies
for processing information.
✔✔Skinner's Operant Conditioning theory of development - ✔✔Development consists of
the pattern of behavioral changes that are brought about by rewards and punishments
✔✔Bandura's social cognitive model - ✔✔The arrows illustrate how relations between
behavior, person/cognitive, and environment are reciprocal rather than one-way.
✔✔Ethology - ✔✔Stresses that behavior is strongly influenced by biology, is tied to
evolution, and is characterized by critical or sensitive periods
✔✔Erikson vs. Freud - ✔✔Erik Erikson (1902-1994) recognized Freud's contributions
but believed that Freud misjudged some important dimensions of human development.
For one thing, Erikson (1950, 1968) said we develop in psychosocial stages, rather than
in psychosexual stages as Freud maintained. According to Freud, the primary
motivation for human behavior is sexual in nature; according to Erikson, it is social and
reflects a desire to affiliate with other people. According to Freud, our basic personality
is shaped during the first five years of life; according to Erikson, developmental change
occurs throughout the life span. Thus, in terms of the early-versus-later-experience
issue described earlier in the chapter, Freud viewed early experience as being far more
important than later experiences, whereas Erikson emphasized the importance of both
early and later experiences.
✔✔Descriptive research - ✔✔Aims to observe and record behavior. For example, a
researcher might observe the extent to which people are altruistic or aggressive toward
each other. By itself, descriptive research cannot prove what causes some
phenomenon, but it can reveal important information about people's behavior
, ✔✔Correlational research - ✔✔Aims to describe the strength of the relationship
between two or more events or characteristics. The more strongly the two events are
correlated (or related or associated), the more accurately we can predict one event from
the other
✔✔Expermental Research - ✔✔Carefully regulated procedure in which one or more of
the factors believed to influence the behavior being studied are manipulated while all
other factors are held constant.
✔✔Case study - ✔✔Study of one individual in great depth
✔✔Cross-sectional study - ✔✔Study in which people of different ages are compared
with one another
✔✔Longitudinal study - ✔✔Study that observes the same participants on many
occasions over a long period of time usually years.
✔✔Dominant vs. Recessive genes - ✔✔One gene of a pair always exerts its effects
(dominant), overriding the potential influence of the other gene (recessive)
✔✔Genotype vs. Phenotype - ✔✔• Genotype: A person's genetic heritage; the actual
genetic material.
• Phenotype: The way an individual's genotype is expressed in observed and
measurable characteristics, including physical characteristics (such as height, weight,
and hair color) and psychological characteristics (such as personality and intelligence).
✔✔Chromosomal abnormalities - ✔✔Down syndrome, Turner syndrome, Klinefelter
syndrome
✔✔Genetic abnormalities - ✔✔Sickle cell anemia, Fragile X syndrome, Phenylketonuria
(PKU)
✔✔Life-span perspective - ✔✔The perspective that development is lifelong,
multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, multidisciplinary, and contextual; involves
growth, maintenance, and regulation; and is constructed through biological,
sociocultural, and individual factors working together.
✔✔Social Cognitive theory of development - ✔✔The view of psychologists who
emphasize behavior, environment, and cognition as the key factors in development.
✔✔Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory - ✔✔An environmental systems theory that
focuses on five environmental systems: Microsystem, Mesosystem, Exosystem,
Macrosystem, and Chronosystem.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS GRADED A+
✔✔Lev Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory of development - ✔✔Cognitive theory that
emphasizes how culture and social interaction guide cognitive development. Cognitive
development involves learning to use the inventions of society, such as language,
mathematical systems, and memory strategies. Thus in one culture, children might learn
to count with the help of a computer; in another, they might learn by using beads.
Children's social interaction with more-skilled adults and peers is indispensable to their
cognitive development. Through this interaction, they learn to use the tools that will help
them adapt and be successful in their culture.
✔✔Information processing theory of development - ✔✔Emphasizes that individuals
manipulate information, monitor it, and strategize about it. Central to this theory are the
processes of memory and thinking. Thinking is information processing, when individuals
perceive, encode, represent, store, and retrieve information, they are thinking. Robert
Siegler emphasizes that an important aspect of development is learning good strategies
for processing information.
✔✔Skinner's Operant Conditioning theory of development - ✔✔Development consists of
the pattern of behavioral changes that are brought about by rewards and punishments
✔✔Bandura's social cognitive model - ✔✔The arrows illustrate how relations between
behavior, person/cognitive, and environment are reciprocal rather than one-way.
✔✔Ethology - ✔✔Stresses that behavior is strongly influenced by biology, is tied to
evolution, and is characterized by critical or sensitive periods
✔✔Erikson vs. Freud - ✔✔Erik Erikson (1902-1994) recognized Freud's contributions
but believed that Freud misjudged some important dimensions of human development.
For one thing, Erikson (1950, 1968) said we develop in psychosocial stages, rather than
in psychosexual stages as Freud maintained. According to Freud, the primary
motivation for human behavior is sexual in nature; according to Erikson, it is social and
reflects a desire to affiliate with other people. According to Freud, our basic personality
is shaped during the first five years of life; according to Erikson, developmental change
occurs throughout the life span. Thus, in terms of the early-versus-later-experience
issue described earlier in the chapter, Freud viewed early experience as being far more
important than later experiences, whereas Erikson emphasized the importance of both
early and later experiences.
✔✔Descriptive research - ✔✔Aims to observe and record behavior. For example, a
researcher might observe the extent to which people are altruistic or aggressive toward
each other. By itself, descriptive research cannot prove what causes some
phenomenon, but it can reveal important information about people's behavior
, ✔✔Correlational research - ✔✔Aims to describe the strength of the relationship
between two or more events or characteristics. The more strongly the two events are
correlated (or related or associated), the more accurately we can predict one event from
the other
✔✔Expermental Research - ✔✔Carefully regulated procedure in which one or more of
the factors believed to influence the behavior being studied are manipulated while all
other factors are held constant.
✔✔Case study - ✔✔Study of one individual in great depth
✔✔Cross-sectional study - ✔✔Study in which people of different ages are compared
with one another
✔✔Longitudinal study - ✔✔Study that observes the same participants on many
occasions over a long period of time usually years.
✔✔Dominant vs. Recessive genes - ✔✔One gene of a pair always exerts its effects
(dominant), overriding the potential influence of the other gene (recessive)
✔✔Genotype vs. Phenotype - ✔✔• Genotype: A person's genetic heritage; the actual
genetic material.
• Phenotype: The way an individual's genotype is expressed in observed and
measurable characteristics, including physical characteristics (such as height, weight,
and hair color) and psychological characteristics (such as personality and intelligence).
✔✔Chromosomal abnormalities - ✔✔Down syndrome, Turner syndrome, Klinefelter
syndrome
✔✔Genetic abnormalities - ✔✔Sickle cell anemia, Fragile X syndrome, Phenylketonuria
(PKU)
✔✔Life-span perspective - ✔✔The perspective that development is lifelong,
multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, multidisciplinary, and contextual; involves
growth, maintenance, and regulation; and is constructed through biological,
sociocultural, and individual factors working together.
✔✔Social Cognitive theory of development - ✔✔The view of psychologists who
emphasize behavior, environment, and cognition as the key factors in development.
✔✔Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory - ✔✔An environmental systems theory that
focuses on five environmental systems: Microsystem, Mesosystem, Exosystem,
Macrosystem, and Chronosystem.
