LAD

Chomsky’s “language acquisition devise”—the entire set of innate mental mechanisms

that enable a child to acquire language quickly and efficiently, including the inborn
foundations for universal grammar plus the entire set of inborn mechanisms that guide
children’s learning of the unique rules of the culture’s language. (414)

Morphemes, Phonemes and grammar

Morphemes—the smallest meaningful units of a language; that is, the smallest units that
stand for objects, events, ideas, characteristics, or relationships. Content morphemes
include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs- the morphemes that carry the main
meaning of a sentence. Grammatical morphemes include articles, conjunctions,
prepositions, and some prefixes and suffixes. (406)

Phenomes—Elementary vowel and consonant sounds. (407)

Grammar—Rules of a language that specify permissible ways to arrange units at one

level to produce the net higher level in the hierarchy. Include rules of phonology, which
specify how phonemes can be arranged to produce morphemes, morphology, which
specificy how morphemes can be combined to form words, and rules of syntax, which
specific how words can be arranged to produce phrases and sentences. (407)

Critical period

Period in which if something does not happen/is learned/ or experienced it will not be
part of child’s development. Critical period for language seems to be first ten years of
life. Genie as an example--(415-416)

Inborn abilities for language

Piaget theory-including stages

Mental development derives from child’s own actions on physical environment. By

acting on objects, children develop mental representations called schemes, which are
blueprints for actions. Assimilation is process by which new experiences are incorporated
into existing schemes, whereby accommodation is process by which existing schemes
expand or change somewhat to accommodate new object or event. Operations, or actions
which can be undone, are most conducive to mental development.

Four stages of development/schemes:

Sensorimotor: Provide foundation for acting on objects that are present but not for
thinking about objects that are absent (birth-2)
Preoperational: Well-developed ability to symbolize objects and events that are absent,
and in play delight in exercising that ability (2-7)

Concrete-Operational: Permit child to think about reversible consequences of actions and

thereby provide basis for understanding physical principles like conservation of substance
and cause and effect (7-12)

Formal-Operational: Principles that apply to wide variety of situations—permit person to

think theoretically and apply principles even to actions that cannot actually be performed

(390-95)

Vygotsky ideas on language development

Emphasizes child’s interaction with social environment—cognitive development is a

matter of internalizing symbols, ideas, and modes of reasoning that have evolved over
course of history and constitute the culture into which the child is born. Child as
apprentice. Language is crucial to mental development, with words serving as building
blocks of verbal thought. Through dialogue and collaboration with more competent
others, child learns to do something socially before being able to do it individually. This
social learning takes place within child’s zone of proximal development.

(395-398)

Role of Play

Play is a vehicle for learning acquiring skills, vehicle for learning about rules and
acquiring self-control.

Piaget sees unsupervised play with peers is crucial to moral development.

Vygotsky thought that through play, children learn to control own impulses and to abide
by socially agreed-upon rules and roles.

Special value of age-mixed play; younger children acquire more advanced interests and
skills, older children develop nurturing skills and consolidate own knowledge.

(437-441)

Incorporating or expanding schemas

Schema is an organized set of information or beliefs that we may have about any entity or
event.

Using preexisting schema to interpret person’s actions: making assumptions based on

first impressions
Attractiveness bias: Physically attractive people are commonly judged as more
intelligent, competent, sociable, and moral than less attractive people.

Baby-Face bias: Baby-face adults perceived as more naïve, honest, helpless, kind and
warm than mature-faced adults of same age; could explain differing perceptions of men
and women’s personalities

Internet: People who meet on internet like each other more than people who meet face-to-
face, because people on internet less anxious, more intimate, and freed from biasing
effect of physical features

(471-74)

Socialization

Socialization is learning about a culture's values, morals, and manners through other
people.

A scheme

By acting on objects, children develop mental representations, called schemes, which are
mental blueprints for actions.

(391)

Harlow and attachment

Harlow conducted experiments with monkeys; found that regardless of which surrogate
contained nutritive nipples, infant monkeys treated cloth-covered surrogate, not wire one,
as a mother. Demonstrates the role of contact comfort in development of attachment
bonds, and helped to revolutionize psychologists’ thinking about infants’ needs.
Provision of adequate nutrition and other physical necessities is not enough; infants also
need close contact with comforting caregivers.

(424-425)

Parenting types

Hoffman’s disciplinary techniques into three classes.

Induction: form of verbal reasoning in which parent induces child to think about harmful
consequences of child’s action.

Power assertion: Use of physical force, punishment, or rewards/bribes to control child’s

behavior.
Love withdrawal: Parents express disapproval of child rather than just of child’s action.

Baumrind parent groups:

Authoritarian parents strongly value obedience for its own sake and use high degree of
power assertion

Authoritative parents prefer inductive discipline but couple it with power assertion when
needed

Permissive parents responses to misbehavior seem to be manifestations of their own

frustration rather than reasoned attempts at correction

Baumrind found children of authoritative parents exhibited most positive qualities.

(435-437)

Kohlberg stages

Lawrence Kohlberg proposed that moral reasoning develops through series of stages:

Pre-conventional level: moral thinking is determined by consequences of actions

Stage 1: Punishment and obedience orientation: might makes right. Don’t steal drug
because you could be sent to jail

Stage 2: Pleasure-seeking orientations: right action determined by one’s own needs. It

won’t do any good because wife will die before he gets out of jail (self interest)

Conventional Level: Actions are directed by desire to conform to expectations of others

or uphold socially accepted rules and values

Stage 3: Good boy/good girl orientation—behavior that pleases others/brings approval.

Others will think you are a thief

Stage 4: Authority Orientation—law and order. Don’t steal drug because everyone is
equal in eyes of the life; wife’s condition doesn’t merit stealing

Post-Conventional Level: Behavior directed by self-accepted moral principles

Stage 5: Social contract Orientation. Mutual respect for rights of others must be
maintained (social contract)

Stage 6: Morality of Universal Principles—self-chosen ethical principles

Steal drug and then tell authorities he has done so. Will face penalty but also have saved
a life (self-chosen ethical principles)

Few people go beyond stage 4.

(449-450)

Benefits of water birthing

• Speeds up labor
• Reduces blood pressure
• Gives mother more feelings of control
• Provides significant pain relief
• Promotes relaxation
• Enables the mother to assume any position which is comfortable for labor and birth
• Conserves her energy
• Reduces the need for drugs and interventions
• Gives mother a private protected space
• Reduces perineal trauma and eliminates episiotomies
• Reduces cesarean section rates
• Is highly rated by mothers - typically stating they would consider giving birth in water
again
• Is highly rated by experienced providers
• Encourages an easier birth for mother and a gentler welcome for baby

Erikson theory

Each stage of life is associated with a particular problem or set of problems to be resolved
through interaction. The way person a resolves each problem influences the way the
person approaches subsequent life stages. In infancy, according to Erikson, the primary
problem is that of developing a sense of trust, that is, a secure sense that other people can
be relied upon for care and help.

(423)

Socioemotional selectivity

As people grow older, they become more concerned with enjoying the present and less
concerned with activities that function primarily to prepare for the future. As people grow
older, they devote less attention and energy to casual acquaintances and strangers and
more to people with whom they already have ties.

(461)
Fundamental attribution error

The person bias (people tend to give too much weight to personality and not enough to
the environmental situation when they make attributions about others’ actions)—label
designed to signify persuasiveness and strength of the bias and to suggest that it underlies
many other social-psychological phenomena. People more likely to make error if they are
also occupied by other tasks or if they makes judgments immediately or very soon after
action. Research subjects who are told their job is to assess someone’s personality more
likely to make error.

(468)

Gender differences in uncommitted sex

Boys more often encouraged in their sexual adventures, and more likely to feel proud of
them, than are girls. More likely to want to have sex for sheer pleasure of it.

-Theory of parental investment: sex that pays greater cost in bearing and rearing young
will be more discriminating in choosing when and with whom to copulate

READ (452-454)

Attributions, attributional biases, information used for making attributions

Attributions are claims about the cause of someone’s behavior.

-Does person regularly hehave this way in situation? Do many other people regularly
behave in this situation? Does this person behave this way in many other situations?

Person bias—attribute too much to person’s personality and not enough to environment
surrounding them

Actor-Observency Discrepancy: Difference between attributions people make about own

behavior and others’ behavior (knowledge-across-situations hypothesis: people usually
judge behavior of close friends as more flexible; visual-orientation bias: when people
watch videotape from own perspective versus that of others, more likely to attribute to
societal factors)

Cross-cultural difference in attribution: Eastern cultures make more situation attributions,

less person attributions

(466-470)

Stereotyping
Stereotypes are the schema, or organized set of knowledge or beliefs, that we carry in our
heads about any group of people.

Explicit stereotypes: both private and public, person consciously uses them in judging
other people

Implicit stereotypes: Unconscious but able to affect out thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Measured through priming (any concept activates entire set of concepts closely
associated with it) and implicit association tests (people classify two concepts together
more quickly if they are already closely linked in their mind)

Studies reveal that negative implicit stereotypes can promote prejudiced behavior even
without conscious prejudice

Implicit prejudices are based on primitive emotional processes, modifiable by classical

conditioning. Positive associations with members of the stereotyped group can help
reduce implicit prejudice

(485)

Cognitive dissonance theory

Festinger: We have a built-in mechanism that creates uncomfortable feeling of

dissonance, or lack of harmony, when we sense some inconsistency among the various
attitudes, beliefs, and items of knowledge that constitute our mental store.

Causes us to avoid dissonant information, firm up attitude to be to be consistent with

action, or insufficient-justification effect (When you can’t undo an action made by free
choice, so you modify your set of beliefs instead to justify action)

(493-496)

Harold Kelley

Developed logical model for judging whether particular action should be attributed to
some characteristic of acting person or to something about immediate environment: Does
person regularly behave this way in this situation? Do many other people regularly
behave this way in this situation? Does this person behave this way in many other
situations?

(467)

Sociometer theory

Self-esteem is based largely on person’s sense of others’ attitudes towards him of her.
(477)

Social psychology

The subfield of psychology that deals most explicitly with how people view one another
and are influenced by one another.

(465)

Tripartite model of attitudes

Affect, behavior, cognition

Persuasion

Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty and Cacioppo) proposes that major determinant of
whether message will be processed systematically or superficially is personal relevance
of message. We are cognitive misers.

(494)

Trait

Relatively permanent and enduring qualities; example: a consistent and long-lasting

tendency to behave in a certain way

o Outgoing

o Shy

o Rude

(11/17 notes/538)

Factor analysis

Statistical technique that allows trait theorists to reduce traits into a smaller manageable
set of mathematically defined factors

(11/17 notes/539-40)
Frances Schachter

Argued that sibling contrast and split-parent identification are devices by which parents
and children consciously or unconsciously strive to reduce sibling rivalry; ways of
“carving out unique niche”—he found that these phenomena are stronger for adjacent
pairs of siblings than pairs separated in birth order and stronger for same-sex pairs

(552)

Proximate explanation

Says people’s personalities are different from one another because of causal mechanisms
that operate in the lifeline of individual to produce phenomenon in question. Focus on
ways by which differing genes and experiences work to make us different.

By contrast, ultimate explanation focuses on function, or evolutionary survival value,

rather than mechanisms.

(548)

Defense mechanisms

Mental process of self-deception that operate to reduce one’s consciousness of wishes,

memories, and other thoughts that would threaten one’s self-esteem or in other ways
provoke a strong sense of insecurity, or anxiety (developed by Anna Freud).

•Repression: pushing thoughts into the unconscious.

•Denial: claiming/believing that what is true to be actually false.
•Displacement: redirecting to a substitute target.
•Sublimation : redirecting towards something accepted or valued by society
•Projection: attributing uncomfortable feelings/thoughts to others.
•Rationalization: creating false but credible justifications.
•Reaction Formation: overacting in the opposite way to the fear.
•Regression: going back to acting as a child.

(560-63)

Self actualization

The process of becoming one’s full self—that is, of realizing one’s dreams and
capabilities. The specific route to self-actualization will vary from person to person and
from time to time within a person’s lifetime, but for each individual the route must be
self-chosen.

(565-566)
Self efficacy

Bandura—People’s beliefs about their own abilities to perform specific tasks. People who
expect that they can perform a certain task are said to have high self-efficacy about the
task, and people who expect the opposite are said to have low self-efficacy.

(569)

Allocentric

Allocentric individuals:

-Highly concerned with personal relationships and promoting the interests of the groups
to which they belong

-Respond primarily to the conditions of their social environment

-Probably in collectivist culture

Ideocentric individuals

-Focus on their own interests

-Motivated by their own inner needs

(572, 11/17 notes)

Reaction formation

Overacting in the opposite way to the fear

Person who hates her mother and wishes her dead may consciously experience these
feelings and intense love for her mother and strong concern for her safety; People who
are gay might react by hating gay people

(561/11/19 notes)

Westernized personality theories

Five factor model—person’s personality is most efficiently described in terms of five
relatively independently global trait dimensions: neuroticism (vulnerability to emotional
upset), extraversion (tendency to be outgoing), openness to experience, agreeableness,
and conscientiousness. Nearly all of the thousands of adjectives commonly used to
describe personalities correlate at least to some degree with one or another of these five
traits. The model also posits that each global trait dimension encompasses six subordinate
trait dimensions referred to as facets of that trait.

(541)

Petty & Cacioppo’s elaboration likelihood model

A major determinant of whether a message will be processed systematically or
superficially is the personal relevance of the message—we tend to be cognitive misers.

(491)

Insufficient-justification effect

When people behave in ways that are contrary to their attitudes; can’t undo actions, but
they can relieve dissonance by modifying or reversing attitudes. This change is called
insufficient-justification effect, because it occurs only if the person has no easy way to
justify the behavior, given his or her previous attitude.

(494-495)

Implicit attitude

Implicit attitudes—those formed through direct experience or repeated associations—

influence behavior automatically. Only by conscious thought can we present them from
influencing our behavior.

Explicit attitudes must be brought to mind before influencing behavior.

(497)

Superficial thought

Using decision rules, or heuristics, to evaluate information and develop attitudes. We use
these rules because they often allow us to make useful judgments with minimal
expenditures of time and mental energy. Rules become mental habits. Ex. If there are a
lot of numbers and big words in message, it must be well documented

(491)

Sharing toys by age

In experiments conducted in United States, nearly every infant aged 12 to 18 months
spontaneously gave toys to adults (parents and strangers) in laboratory room.

(432-433)

Giving

Giving appears to be a human instinct, much like smiling and babbling. Near end of first
year of life, infants routinely, without special encouragement, begin to give objects to
caregivers and delight in games of give-and-take.

(432)

John Bowlby on Darwin

Bowlby contended that the emotional bond between human infant and adult caregiver—
especially mother—is promoted by set of instinctive tendencies in both partners. These
includes infant’s crying to signal discomfort, adult’s distress and urge to help on hearing
the crying etc.

Contended that attachment attachment is universal human phenomenon with biological

foundation that derives from natural selection—infants potentially in danger when out of
sight of caregivers.

Variation on Insecure Attachment

-John Bowlby proposed there is also another analogous type of attachment called anxious
attachment
-it is natural for a child to desire for a close relationship with an attachment figure
-In this condition the child is apprehensive that attachment figures will be
inaccessible and/or unresponsive
-When this propensity is present beyond a certain degree it is usually regarded as
neurotic

-This is thought to occur in adult relationships as well

(423-425/ notes 11/5/09)

Stranger and Separation Anxiety

Stranger anxiety- wariness of a person child does not know

Separation anxiety- anxiety when familiar care-giver leaves from the child’s sight
Children who are securely attached show less separation anxiety- may be they learn to
trust that care-giver will return

Also children raised around many people (including siblings) show less stranger anxiety
than those who know just a few adults

(Notes 11/5/09)

Hoffman’s categories of discipline

Induction (best): form of verbal reasoning in which parent induces child to think about
harmful consequences of child’s action.

Power assertion: Use of physical force, punishment, or rewards/bribes to control child’s

behavior.

Love withdrawal: Parents express disapproval of child rather than just of child’s action.

(435-437)

Occupational self direction

Kohn and Slomcyznski found workers that moved into jobs that were high in self-
direction from jobs that were low in that quality changed psychologically in certain ways
relative to other workers. Over time, they became more intellectually flexible, not just at
work but in approaches to life; valued self-direction more than they had; less
authoritarian and more democratic in approaches to child-rearing

Children of these parents more self-directed and less conforming.

Kohn and Slomcyznski contended the effects they observed on parenting may be adaptive
for people whose social class determines jobs available to them; in settings where job
demands obeying orders, might make sense to raise children this way, and vice-versa

(459)

Work and old age

Disengagement theory of aging—elderly people gradually and by choice withdraw from

active involvement in world around them and attend to subjective inner world of
memories, thoughts etc.
Engagement theory—elderly people prefer to remain active and those most involved in
external world are most happy

READ (460-462)

Siegler

Conducted experiments as to specific techniques people use to answer balance-beam

problems; found that people who perform poorly don’t just guess randomly; identified
four rules people used ranked from simplest and least effective to most advanced and
effective

Rule 1 (5yrs)—Weight alone considered, side with more weight goes down
Rule 2 (9yrs)—Weight alone considered unless weights are the same, in which case sides
with weights further away predicted to go down
Rule 3 (9yrs)—Both weight/distance considered, but when weight greater on one side
and distance greater on other, person just guesses
Rule 4(some adolescents/adults)—For each side, weight multiplied by distance from
fulcrum and then sum of these products is found; side for which sum is higher goes
down

For each rule, people at one level can use information needed to get to next level but
can’t fathom information to skip a level; feedback from problems can help children
advance only to next level of rule

(401-402)

Social referencing

By the time they can crawl or walk freely on their own (toward end of first year), infants
engage in what is called social references—they look at caregivers’ emotional
expressions for clues about possible danger of actions.

(387)

Infants examining the world

Infants begin to show special interest in aspects of environment they can control almost
immediately after birth.

By 5 or 6 months, babies regularly manipulate and explore objects in sophisticated

manner researchers label as examining.

Use social cues to explore.

(READ 384-390)

Infants on looking at novel objects

Babies gaze longer at new stimuli than familiar ones; when shown a pattern, they will
look at it less and less over a few minutes, a phenomenon known as habituation.

(384)