Psychology Unit IV: Stage Theorists

STAGE THEORISTS

• we travel from stage to stage in life

Freud

• all people have libido (sexual drive)
• libido travels to different areas of the body throughout development

Freud's Stages

Oral

• zero - 1 years old
• seek pleasure through mouth

Anal

• 1 - 3 years old
• libido is focused on controlling waste and expelling it

Phallic

• 3 - 6 years old
• kids recognize gender
• identify with same sex parents
• Oedipus and Electra complexes

Latency

• 6 - 11 years old
• conflicts are dormant
• cooties

Genital

• 11 +
• experience sexual feelings towards others
• libido focused on genitals

Characteristics 

Criticisms of Kohlberg

• Gilligan said he only tested boys
• girls look at situational factors
• boys tend to have more absolute value of morality

Adolescence

• transition period from childhood to adulthood

Puberty

• period of sexual maturation
• person is capable of reproducing

Primary Sexual Characteristics

• body structures that make reproduction possible 

Secondary Sexual Characteristics

• no reproductive sexual characteristics
• menarche: female experiences period
• spermarche: male experience's first ejaculation

Adulthood

• all physical abilities essentially peak by our mid - twenties

Physical Milestones

• menopause: ending of a woman's ability to reproduce
• lack of estrogen

Types of Intelligence

• Crystallized: accumulated knowledge which increases with age
• Fluid: solve problems fast and think abstractly, peaks in twenties, then decreases over time

Alzheimer's 

• progresses and irreversible brain disorder characterized by gradual deterioration of memory, language, and physical functioning
• 5 - 20 years
• lack of Acetylcholine

Life Expectancy

• median age is around 75 years old
• keeps increasing 
• more men are born than women
• women outlive men by four years

Death Stages (Ross)

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Psychology Unit IV: Developmental Psychology

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

• womb to tomb
• how we change physically, socially, cognitively, and morally

Nature

• the way you were born

Nurture

• the way you were raised
  

Physical Development

• focus on our physical changes over time

Prenatal Development

• conception begins with the drop of an egg and release of about 200 million sperm 
• sperm seeks out the egg and attempts to penetrate the egg's surface

Zygote

• once the sperm penetrates the egg, we have a fertilized egg called a zygote

1st stage of prenatal development

• lasts about two weeks and consists of rapid cell division
• less than half survive 1st two weeks
• about ten days after conception, zygote will attach itself to the uterine wall
• outer part of zygote is the placenta

Placenta

• structure that allows oxygen and nutrients to pass into the fetus from the mother's bloodstream and bodily waste to pass out through the mother (which filters nutrients)

After two weeks, the zygote develops into an embryo

Embryo

• six weeks, heart rate begins to beat and the organs begin to develop

By nine weeks, we have a fetus

• sixth month
• stomach and other organs have formed enough to survive outside the mother

Teratogens

• chemicals that can harm the prenatal environment
• alcohol (FAS)
• STDS
• HIV
• herpes
• drugs

Reflexes

• inborn automatic responses

1. rooting (cheek): when a newborn is touched on the cheek, the infant will turn its head toward the source of stimulation
2. grasping: if an object is placed into a baby's palm, the baby would try to grasp the object with their fingers
3. moro: when startled, a baby will fling their limbs out and quickly retract them
4. Babinski: when a baby's foot is stroked, they will spread their toes

Maturation

• physical growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, regardless of the environment
• timings are different, sequence is the same

Cognition

• all mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering

Cognitive Development

• researched by John Piaget

Schemas

• children view world through schemas
• ways we interpret the world around us (concepts)
• what you picture in your head when you think of anything

Assimilation

• incorporating new experiences into existing schemas

Accommodation

• changing an existing schema to adapt to new information

Four Stages of Cognitive Development

Sensorimotor Stage 

• 0 - 2 
• experience the world through our senses
• object permanence: develops around 6 - 8 months, once accustomed to something, babies will want it, such as a bottle

Preoperational Stage

• 2 - 6 or 7 years
• begin to use language to represent objects (symbols)
• non - logical "magical thinking"
• egocentric: early in this stage they cannot look at the world through anyone's eyes, but their own
• conservation: that quantity remains the same despite changes in appearance and part of logical thinking 

Concrete Operational Stage

• 7 - 11 
• can demonstrate concept of conservation
• learn logic
• understand reversibility, or awareness that actions can be reversed such as a dog is a Labrador and a Labrador is a dog 

Formal Operational Stage

• 12 +
• abstract reasoning
• hypothesis testing
• manipulate object in minds when seeing them
• reasoning with metaphors and analogies

Criticisms of Piaget

• underestimate's ability of children
• info - processing model: children do not learn in stages, but rather tin a gradual continuous growth pattern
• attention span gradually grows over time

Development

Social Development

• up until they turn a year old, infants develop stranger anxiety
• Stranger Anxiety: fear of strangers and begins by about eight months
• Separation Anxiety: distress an infant shows when an object of attachment leaves

Attachment

• most important social construction 
• Secure (Ideal): children show some distress when parents leaves, seek contact at reunion, explore when parent is gone, play and greet when parent is present
• Insecure: lack of one or more characteristics

Konrad Lorenz

• some animals form attachment through imprinting

Origins

• Harry Harlow and monkeys
• showed that monkeys needed touch or body contact to form attachment
• critical period: after birth when an organisms exposure to certain stimuli or experience produce proper development
• those who are deprived have trouble forming attachment

Parenting Styles

Authoritarian

• strict standards for children's behavior

Permissive

• allow freedom, lax parenting, do not enforce rules consistently

Authoritative

• set reasonable standards of expectations and encourage independence

Psychology Unit IV: The Brain

THE BRAIN

Brain Structures

1. Hindbrain (biggest part)
2. Midbrain
3. Forebrain

Hindbrain

• structures on top of our spinal cord
• controls basic biological structures

Medulla Oblongata

• located above spinal cord
• controls: heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing

Pons

• just above the medulla
• connects hindbrain with midbrain and forebrain
• involved in facial expressions

Cerebellum

• bottom rear of brain
• means "little brain"
• coordinates fine muscle movements

Midbrain

• coordinates simple movement with sensory information
• most important structure in midbrain is the Reticular Formation (controls arousal and ability to focus our attention)
• if destroyed: would sleep

Forebrain

• what makes us human
• largest part
• consists of thalamus, Limbic system, and cerebral cortex

Thalamus

• switchboard of the brain
• receives sensory signals from the spinal cord and sends them to other parts of the forebrain
• every sense except smell

Limbic System

• hypothalamus
• pituitary gland
• amygdala
• hippocampus

Hypothalamus

• most important part of the brain
• controls body temperature, hunger, thirst, sexual arousal, and endocrine system

Hippocampus

• involved in process and storage of memories

Amygdala

• involved in how we process memory
• more involved in volatile emotions like anger

Cerebral Cortex

• made up of densely packed neurons we call "gray matter" 
• Glial cells:support brain cells
• four lobes

More Parts of the Brain

Hemispheres

• divided into two 
• contralateral control: right controls left and vice versa
• left: logic and sequential tasks
• right: spatial and creative tasks

Frontal Lobe

• abstract thought and emotional control
• contains Motor Cortex: sends signals to our body controlling muscle movements
• contains Broca's Area: responsible for controlling muscles that produce speech 
• damage to Broca's Area is called Broca's Aphasia: unable to make movements to talk

Parietal Lobe

• contains Sensory Cortex: receives incoming touch sensations from the rest of the body
• mostly made up of association areas (any area associated with receiving sensory information or coordinating muscle movements

Occipital Lobe

• deals with vision
• contains Visual Cortex: interprets messages from our eyes into images we can understand

Temporal Lobe

• process sounds sensed by our ears
• interpreted in auditory cortex
• not lateralized
• contains Wernike's Area: interprets written and spoken speech
• Wernike's Aphasia: unable to understand language, syntax and grammar jumbled

Corpus Callosum

• bridge of nerve fibers that connects or divides the two hemispheres

Brain Plasticity

• when the brain is damaged, it will attempt to find new ways to reroute messages

Cerebrum

• largest part of the brain
• divided into left and right hemispheres and divided into lobes
• contains the cerebral cortex (gray matter)
• controls voluntary movement, coordinates mental activity, and is the center for all conscious living

Psychology Unit IV: Ways We Study the Brain

WAYS WE STUDY THE BRAIN

Accidents

• Phineas Gage Story: personality changes after accident

Lesions

• removal or destruction of some part of the brain
• another word: frontal lobotomy

Electroencephalogram (EEG)

• detects brain waves through their electrical output
• usually used mainly in sleep research

Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT Scan)

• 3D x - ray of the brain
• good for tumor locating, but tells nothing about function

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

• more detailed picture of the brain using a magnetic field to knock electrons off axis
• takes many still pictures and turns pictures into a movie like production

Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

• measures how much of a chemical the brain is using 
• usually glucose consumption

Psychology Unit IV: Nervous System

NERVOUS SYSTEM

Central Nervous System

• spinal cord and brain

Peripheral Nervous System

• all nerves not encased in bone
• everything except the brain and spinal cord
• two categories: autonomic and somatic

Somatic

• controls voluntary muscle movement
• uses motor neurons

Autonomic

• controls automatic functions of the body
• two categories: sympathetic and parasympathetic

Sympathetic

• fight or flight response
• automatically accelerates heart rate, breathing, dilates pupils, slows down digestion

Parasympathetic

• automatically slows the body down after a stressful event
• heart rate and breathing slows down, pupils constrict and digestion speeds up

Reflexes

• normally sensory neurons take information up through the spine to the brain
• some reactions occur when sensory neurons reach just the spinal cord

Endocrine System

• similar to the nervous system, except hormones work a lot slower than neurotransmitters

Psychology Unit IV: Neurons

NEURONS

Nervous System

• starts with an individual nerve cell called a neuron

How does a Neuron fire?

• Resting Potential: slightly negative charge
• reach the threshold when enough neurotransmitters reach dendrites
• go into Action Potential (fire)

All-or-none response

• the idea that either the neuron fires or it does not - no part way firing
• like a gun

Neurotransmitters

• chemical messengers that a released by terminal buttons through the synapse

Types of Neurotransmitters

Achetycholine (ACH)

• deals with motor movements and memory
• lack of ACH had been linked to Alzheimer's disease 

Dopamine

• deals with motor movement and alertness
• lack of dopamine has been linked to Parkinson's disease
• too much has been linked to Schizophrenia 

Serotonin

• involved with mood control
• lack of serotonin has been linked to clinical depression

Endorphins

• involved in pain control
• many of our most addictive drugs deal with endorphins

Norepinephrine

• helps control alertness and arousal
• under supply: depression
• over supply: manic symptoms

GABA (gamma - aminobutytic - acid)

• major inhibitory neurotransmitters
• under supply: leads to tremors, seizures, and insomnia

Glutamate

• major excitatory; involved in memory 
• over supply: can overstimulate the brain leading to migraines (this is why some people avoid MSG in food)

Drugs Can Be

• Agonist: make neuron fire
• Antagonist: stop neural firing
• Re-uptake Inhibitors: block neurotransmitters from entering the neuron

Types of Neurons

Sensory (Afferent)

• take information from senses to the brain

Inter 

• take messages from sensory neurons to other parts of the brain or to motor neurons

Motor (Efferent)

• take information from the brain to the rest of the body