3 Development and Learning

Explain how enduring themes inform developmental psychology.

• Developmental psychology is concerned with both chronological order of development and/ or thematic issues in development across the lifespan. Thematic issues of interest to developmental psychologists include stability and change, nature and nurture, and continuous and discontinuous stages of development.

Describe ways crosssectional and longitudinal research design methods used in developmental psychology inform understanding about behavior and mental processes.

Explain how physical development before birth applies to behavior and mental processes.

• T eratogens, maternal illness, genetic mutations, hormonal, and environmental factors can influence the major physical and psychological milestones that occur during prenatal development.
  • Exclusion: The stages of prenatal development (zygote, embryo, and fetus) are outside the scope of the AP Psychology Exam.

Explain how physical development in infancy and childhood apply to behavior and mental processes.

• Physical development in infancy and childhood happens in generally the same order, but the timing of the development can vary. The development of fine and gross motor coordination is among the major physical and psychological milestones that define infancy and childhood. These physical skills develop as children mature, allowing children to develop critical skills needed to become more independent.
• Infants possess reflexes, like the rooting reflex, that indicate on-track physical and psychological milestone development.
• Research using the visual cliff apparatus demonstrates an early ability in infants to perceive depth and an innovative way to assess infant responses.
• Research suggests that critical or sensitive periods in infancy and childhood have strong developmental effects, especially for skills such as language. Some non-human animals will imprint on the first object they encounter as a means of survival.

Explain how physical development in adolescence applies to behavior and mental processes.

• The main physical and psychological milestones that occur in adolescence are the adolescent growth spurt and puberty, in which reproductive ability develops. Adolescents develop primary and secondary sex characteristics during this time, such as menarche and spermarche.

Explain how physical development in adulthood applies to behavior and mental processes.

• Adulthood spans most of the lifespan and is characterized by a general leveling off and then a varying decline in reproductive ability (i.e., menopause), mobility, flexibility, reaction time, and visual and auditory sensory acuity.

Describe how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development.

Explain how theories of cognitive development apply to behavior and mental processes. UNIT 3 Development and Learning

• According to Piaget, children develop schemas via continuous and discontinuous processes such as assimilation and accommodation.
  • i. The sensorimotor stage occurs from infancy through toddlerhood. Object permanence develops during this stage.
  • ii. The preoperational stage occurs from toddlerhood through early childhood. Children become proficient in using mental symbols and engage in pretend play. The preoperational stage is identified more by cognitive tasks children cannot perform such as conservation and reversibility, or by those they exhibit, such as animism and egocentrism. Children begin to develop a theory of mind during this stage.
  • iii. The concrete operational stage occurs from early through late childhood. Children in this stage can generally correct the cognitive errors made in the preoperational stage and understand the world in logical, realistic, and straightforward ways, but struggle to think systematically.
  • iv. The formal operational stage occurs from late childhood through adulthood. People in this stage gain the ability to think abstractly and hypothetically. Piaget proposed that not all people achieve formal operational thinking.
• According to Vygotsky, children are social learners who learn through interacting with and scaffolding by other people within sociocultural contexts. Ideally, learning occurs while the person is in their zone of proximal development.
• Adults experience changes in cognitive capabilities as they progress through the lifespan. Crystallized intelligence remains relatively stable through adulthood while fluid intelligence tends to wane as people age. Cognitive disorders that affect adults include dementia.

Explain how key components of language and communication apply to behavior and mental processes.

• Language is a shared (mutually agreed upon) system of arbitrary symbols (often expressed as and combined into phonemes, morphemes, and semantics) that are rule-governed (via grammar and syntax) and generative to produce an infinity of ideas.
  • Exclusion: Pragmatics of language are outside the scope of the AP Psychology Exam.

Explain how language develops in humans.

• In language development across all cultures, people use nonverbal manual gestures (e.g., pointing) to communicate and develop formal language through specific stages (cooing, babbling, one-word stage, and telegraphic speech). People learning a language often make errors such as overgeneralization of language rules as they learn.

Explain how social development relates to behavior and mental processes. UNIT 3 Development and Learning

• The ecological systems theory explores how the social environment influences development. The five systems in this theory are as follows:
• Research has identified different parenting styles of caregivers, including authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive. Cultural differences exist in the ways these parenting styles affect outcomes in caregivers and children.
• Research has identified different attachment styles demonstrated by infants and children, which vary by culture. The types of attachment infants and children display include secure and insecure (avoidant, anxious, and disorganized). T emperament is related to how children attach to caregivers.
  • i. Separation anxiety occurs when children express heightened anxiety or fear when away from a caregiver or in the presence of a stranger.
  • ii. Studies with monkeys demonstrate the importance of comfort over food in attachment.
• Developmental psychologists study how peer relationships develop over time.
  • i. Children engage with peers via play (parallel and pretend).
  • ii. Adolescents gradually rely more on peer relationships as they age. As adolescents interact with peers, they demonstrate a type of egocentrism that is often demonstrated via the imaginary audience and the personal fable.
• Developmental psychologists study how adults develop socially over time.
  • i. Culture plays a role in determining when adulthood begins and when major life events occur (social clock). Some cultures allow for a time of emerging adulthood as a transition from adolescence to adulthood.
  • ii. Relationships with other adults result in adults forming families or family-like relationships that should provide mutual support and care. Childhood attachment styles can affect how adults form attachments to other adults.
• The stage theory of psychosocial development, which was a reconceptualization of the psychosexual theory, proposes that people must resolve psychosocial conflicts at each stage of the lifespan. The stages are as follows:
  • Exclusion: The psychosexual stage theory of development is outside of the scope of the AP Psychology Exam.
• The experience of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) has effects on relationships people form throughout the lifespan. Sociocultural differences exist in what is considered an ACE and how ACEs affect outcomes people may experience.
• Adolescents develop a sense of identity for who they will be as an adult through the processes of achievement, diffusion, foreclosure, and moratorium. Identity development also includes processes for developing identities such as racial/ethnic identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religious identity, occupational identity, and familial identity, often through considering possible selves.

Explain how classical conditioning applies to behavior and mental processes. UNIT 3 Development and Learning

• The behavioral perspective evolved from theories about learning via conditioning. Behaviorists have traditionally focused on observable behavior to the exclusion of mental processes.
• Classical conditioning focuses on the association of one stimulus with another stimulus to elicit a response. Learning the association (also known as acquisition) involves a series of steps that demonstrate principles of associative learning.
  • i. The unconditioned stimulus (UCS) elicits an unconditioned response (UCR). This response becomes the conditioned response (CR) when it is performed in response to the conditioned stimulus (CS).
  • ii. The order of presentation of the CS with the UCS is important to successful acquisition.
  • iii. A CR can become extinct when the CS is no longer paired with the UCS. A formerly extinct CR can be spontaneously recovered when the CS is again presented after extinction.
  • iv. Stimulus discrimination and generalization have been demonstrated in studies of classical conditioning.
  • v. A CS can be used as a UCS in higher-order conditioning.
  • Exclusion: Delayed conditioning, trace conditioning, simultaneous conditioning, and backward conditioning are outside the scope of the AP Psychology Exam.
• Research has demonstrated that emotional responses can be classically conditioned. These findings form the basis of therapeutic interventions for many mental disorders, such as counterconditioning.
  • Exclusion: The expectancy theory is outside the scope of the AP Psychology Exam.
• Research on taste aversions, which are acquired through classical conditioning, demonstrates one-trial conditioning and biological preparedness. One-trial learning occurs when the association is acquired through one pairing of the stimulus and response and is not strengthened by further pairings. Biological preparedness refers to how animals are biologically predisposed to learning certain stimulus-response pairings more quickly than others.
• Habituation occurs when organisms grow accustomed to and exhibit a diminished response to a repeated or enduring stimulus.

Explain how operant conditioning applies to behavior and mental processes. UNIT 3 Development and Learning

• Operant conditioning focuses on associating consequences (reinforcement and punishment) with behaviors. The Law of Effect states that behaviors with reinforcing consequences are more likely to be repeated while behaviors with punishing consequences are not as likely to be repeated.
• Reinforcement and punishment can be positive or negative. Reinforcers can be primary or secondary. Reinforcement discrimination and generalization have been demonstrated in studies of operant conditioning.
• Reinforcement can be used to shape behavior (“shaping”) gradually through rewarding successive approximations of the desired behavior. Research with animals shows that only certain behaviors can be shaped through reinforcement (known as instinctive drift).
• Superstitious behavior occurs when consequences reinforce unrelated behaviors. Learned helplessness occurs when organisms learn that they have no control over their experience of aversive consequences in a given situation.
• The schedule with which reinforcement is delivered can determine the strength of the association between the consequence and the response. The two main types of reinforcement schedules are continuous and partial. Each type of reinforcement behavior can be graphed, resulting in a distinctive pattern on the graph (e.g., fixed-interval schedule produces a scalloped graph).
  • i. Continuous reinforcement schedules deliver reinforcement for each and every correct behavior.
  • ii. The partial reinforcement schedules focus on whether reinforcement is delivered on a time-based schedule (fixed- or variableinterval) or for the number of behaviors performed (fixed- or variable-ratio).

Explain how social learning applies to behavior and mental processes.

• Social learning theory proposes that learning can occur by observation and does not have to involve personal experience with a consequence (vicarious conditioning). Learning can occur by copying the behavior of models. The more similar a model is, the more likely the behavior is to be learned.

Explain how cognitive factors in learning apply to behavior and mental processes.

• Insight learning occurs when the solution to a problem occurs without any association, consequence, or model being present.
• Latent learning occurs when information is learned without reinforcement but is not immediately evident. Latent learning is often demonstrated by cognitive maps.