Module 3 Study Guide

Chapters 4 and 9

Learning Objective 1

Sections 4.1, 4.2, Humans Develop in Three Key Areas, There Are External Threats to Prenatal Development

  1. What is developmental psychology? (p. 136)
  2. What kind of developmental changes fit the physical domain? What kind of developmental changes fit the socio-emotional domain? What kind of developmental changes fit the cognitive domain? (p. 136)
  3. What is prenatal development? What are the three developmental periods in prenatal development? (pp. 138-140)
  4. What happens during the germinal period? When does it start and end? (p. 138)
  5. What happens during the embryonic period? When does it start and end? (p. 138)
  6. What happens during the fetal period? When does it start and end? (p. 138)
  7. Why is the embryonic period the most vulnerable of the three? (p. 138)
  8. What are teratogens? (p. 140)
  9. How can the behavior of both parents cause teratogenic effects? (pp. 140-141)
  10. What are some of the long-term effects on children of a mother’s prenatal cannabis use? (pp. 140-141)
  11. What are other examples of teratogens? (p. 141)

Learning Objective 2

Sections 4.3, 4.4, Infants and Children Change Physically, Infants and Children Change Socially and Emotionally

  1. What does maturation mean? (p. 142)
  2. What do we know about the speed and progress of brain growth in childhood (including myelination and neural pruning)? (p. 142)
  3. What are some consequence of understimulating the brain during infancy and young childhood? (p. 142-143)
  4. How might poverty affect brain development? (pp. 142-143)
  5. What are three motor reflexes that babies are genetically hardwired with? (pp. 143-144)
  6. What is the sequence of motor development as babies learn to move around and eventually to walk on their own? (p. 144)
  7. How might cultural or parental practices influence motor skills maturation? (p. 144)
  8. Babies are born with some well-developed senses; which are they? (p. 144-145)
  9. How well-developed is vision at birth? How long does it take for vision to function the way it does in adults? (p. 145)
  10. What is attachment? What was the purpose of Harry Harlow’s research? (pp. 145-146 and Harlow synopsis p. 148)
  11. Which of the competing theories of attachment did Harlow’s research support? What lesson can parents of newborns take away from this? (pp. 145-146 and Harlow synopsis p. 148)
  12. What are the different types of attachment that are revealed through Mary Ainsworth’s “strange situation”? And how does this “strange situation” test attachment style? (pp. 146-147)
  13. What is separation anxiety? (p. 146)

Learning Objective 3

Sections 4.5, Infants and Children Change Cognitively

  1. What is a schema and what are the two processes through which we develop a schema, according to Jean Piaget? How are these two processes different from each other? (p. 149)
  2. What are the four stages in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development? (pp. 150-152)
  3. What is special about object permanence? (p. 150)
  4. How does egocentrism affect thinking? Which stage is characterized by egocentrism? (p. 151)
  5. What is the law of conservation? How do children differ before and after they grasp conservation? (p. 152)
  6. What are characteristics of the formal operational stage? (p. 152)
  7. What did Lev Vygotsky claim about how the social and cultural context affects a child’s cognitive development? What is scaffolding? (pp. 153-154)
  8. What is a theory of mind, and why is it important for a child’s cognitive development? (p. 154)

Learning Objective 4

Sections 4.6, Language Develops in an Orderly Way

  1. What is language? What is a language made of? (p. 155)
  2. What are phonemes? What are morphemes? (p. 155)
  3. What is syntax? (p. 155)
  4. Do newborns exhibit any language preferences? Why? (p. 155)
  5. What is cooing? What is babbling? When do these usually start? (p. 155)
  6. When do children begin using words? What can a child accomplish using a single word? (p. 155)
  7. What is telegraphic speech? At what age to children start to use it? (p. 156)
  8. What is overregularization, and in what stage of language development does it usually occur? (p. 156)

Learning Objective 5

Sections 4.7, 4.8, 4.9, 4.10, Adolescents Develop Physically, Adolescents Develop Socially and Emotionally, What Roles Do Peers Play in Development, Adolescents Develop Cognitively

  1. What is puberty? When does it typically begin for girls? When does it typically begin for boys? (p. 157)
  2. What are primary sex characteristics? What are secondary sex characteristics? (p. 157)
  3. What changes occur in the brain during early adolescence? (pp. 157-158)
  4. When does the frontal cortex finally get fully developed? What does this mean for adolescent thinking, judgment, and behavior? (p. 158)
  5. Why is identity an important achievement of adolescence, according to Erik Erikson? (pp. 159)
  6. What are some ways that race and ethnicity affect adolescent development? (p. 160)
  7. What are the four main parenting styles? Which one has research identified as producing the most favorable outcomes? (pp .160-161)
  8. What are the four kinds of bullying described in the textbook? (p. 162)
  9. What are moral emotions, and what is their connection to moral reasoning? (pp. 163-164)
  10. According to Lawrence Kohlberg, what are the three main levels of moral reasoning? (p. 164)

Learning Objective 6

Sections 4.12, 4.13, Bodies and Minds Change in Adulthood, Adults Develop Lifelong Social and Emotional Bonds

  1. What kinds of physical changes begin early in adulthood? (p. 167)
  2. What area of the brain shrinks proportionally more than other areas, starting around age 50? (pp. 167-168)
  3. What changes to vision, hearing, mental processing speed, and memory occur as adults age? (p. 168)
  4. What is dementia? What is the most common kind of dementia? Is there anything that might reduce a person’s risk of dementia? (pp. 168-169)
  5. Why is marriage (assuming it’s a happy marriage) good for people? What are some of the ways it makes people’s lives better? (p. 171)
  6. Among heterosexual married couples, which person usually benefits more from marriage, and why? (p. 171)
  7. How do children affect a couple’s relationship (for better and for worse)? (pp. 172-173)
  8. As people get old, how does an awareness of their own mortality affect the choices they make? (p. 173)

Learning Objective 7

Sections 9.1, 9.2, Many Factors Influence Motivation, Some Behaviors Are Motivated for Their Own Sake

  1. What is motivation? What four basic qualities are emphasized in most theories of motivation? (p. 344)
  2. What is a need? How are needs related to drives? (pp. 344-346)
  3. How do equilibrium and homeostasis apply to drive states? (pp. 346-347)
  4. What is physiological arousal? How is arousal related to drives? (p. 347)
  5. What does the Yerkes-Dodson law tell us about the relationship between arousal and performance on a task? (p. 348)
  6. According to Sigmund Freud, what is the pleasure principle, and how is it related to motivations? (pp. 348-349)
  7. What are incentives? Where might they come from? How do incentives differ from drives? (p. 349)
  8. What is intrinsic motivation? What are some examples? How is it different from extrinsic motivation? (pp. 349-350)
  9. How can extrinsic rewards sometimes end up reducing motivation? (p. 350)
  10. According to self-determination theory, what inspires people to work hard? (p. 350)
  11. What does self-perception theory say about how we explain our motives? (pp. 350-352)

Learning Objective 8

Sections 9.3, 9.4, 9.5, Motivation to Eat Is Affected by Biology, Motivation to Eat Is Also Influenced by Learning, People Have a Need to Belong

  1. How big a role does your stomach play in your feeling hunger? (p. 353)
  2. What do glucose, insulin, ghrelin, and leptin levels mean for hunger? (pp. 353-354)
  3. What roles do the ventromedial (mid-) and the lateral (outer side-) regions of the hypothalamus play in our experience of hunger? (p. 354)
  4. How does classical conditioning play a role in hunger and eating? (p. 355)
  5. How does the familiarity preference for certain foods relate to evolution? (p. 355)
  6. How does culture influence our food preferences? (p. 356)
  7. What role does flavor play in eating? (p. 356)
  8. What is motivated by the need to belong? What social cues might we become sensitive to when this need is active? (pp. 357)
  9. What is “belonging uncertainty”? Who is more at risk for this? (p. 358)

Learning Objective 9

Sections 9.8, 9.9, 9.10, Three Major Theories Explain Your Emotions, Your Body and Your Brain Influence Your Emotions, Most People Try to Regulate Their Emotions

  1. What is an emotion? (pp. 362-364)
  2. How does the James-Lange theory explain an emotion? (pp. 364-365)
  3. How does the Cannon-Bard theory explain an emotion? (pp. 365-366)
  4. What is the Two-Factor theory, and how does it explain emotion? (pp. 366-367)
  5. Do different emotions share the same bodily responses? What does the research on body maps (by Nummenmaa) claim about specific emotions and different bodily responses? (pp. 369-370)
  6. What roles does the amygdala play in processing emotion? How do “fast path” and “slow path” processing differ from each other? (pp. 371-372)
  7. What is thought suppression? What is a rebound effect? What is rumination? (p. 374)
  8. What is positive reappraisal? In what kinds of situations might positive reappraisal be helpful? (p. 374)
  9. What is the influence of humor and laughter on our hormones, our circulatory systems, and our perceptions of pain? (p. 374)
  10. How does distraction function as a strategy for managing intense negative emotions? Does it work? Does it seem similar to thought suppression? (p. 374-375)

Learning Objective 10

Sections 9.11, 9.12, You Use Facial Expressions to Interpret Emotions, Emotions Strengthen Your Interpersonal Relations

  1. Which parts of your face combine to deliver the most information about your emotions? (pp. 375-376)
  2. What has cross-cultural research shown about our ability to identify emotion through facial expressions? (pp. 376-377)
  3. Which facial expression is most readily identified across cultures? Which ones are least likely to be correctly identified across cultures? (p. 377)
  4. What evidence suggests that the physical expression of pride is innate rather than learned? (p. 377)
  5. What are display rules of emotion? What is an example from your culture? (pp. 377-378)
  6. How do emotion display rules vary by gender? (p. 378)