1.   Know the definition of Developmental Psychology.

 

 

 

2.   How is Developmental Psychology new, in both its content and method? How new are our current concepts of childhood, adolescence and adulthood, and how did these concepts historically emerge?

 

 

3.   What are the five goals of Developmental Psychology?

 

 

 

4.   Describe three major controversies in Developmental Psychology (Mechanistic vs. organismic approaches, continuous vs. discontinuous (stage) theories, and the nature vs. nurture controversy). Be prepared to identify examples.

 

 

 

5.   Identify three domains of development, and be prepared to identify examples of each.

 

 

 

6.   What are the advantages and disadvantages of breaking the life span into discrete stages? What are the stages of the life span?

 

 

 

7.   Know the defining features of a theory, and the four uses of a theory.

      

 

 

 

8.   Identify the general characteristics of biological theories, and describe two types of biological theories (maturational theory and ethology). Identify examples of each.

 

 

 

9.   Know the areas of human development that psychodynamic theories attempt to explain. (a) Know what Freud’s psychoanalytic theory had to say about psychosexual stages of development, early childhood experience, and their effects on personality. (b) Know how Erikson’s psychosocial theory of development differed from Freud’s. Know (in order) Erikson’s eight stages across the life span, and the crisis that occurs in each stage. What happens if the crisis is not successfully resolved?

 

 

 

10. Know the basic assumptions of behavior-learning theories. Be prepared to identify examples of the kinds of human activities are appropriate (and inappropriate) for behavioral scrutiny? Why are they appropriate (or inappropriate)? (a) In operant conditioning, what is meant by the principle of reinforcement? Be prepared to identify examples. (b) Describe social learning theory (also called observational learning). Know the defining features of social learning theory and how it differs from conditioning theories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

11. Know and identify two different cognitive approaches to development (Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory and information processing theory). Be prepared to identify examples of each.

 

 

 

 

 

 

12. Know what Bronfenbrenner meant by ecological systems theory. Why is it important that we understand the child as a part of an interdependent social system, affecting other people just as others affect him? Also know the five layers of social systems (microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, chronosystem).

13. Describe Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development. What does he mean when he says that the child’s thought is “private speech?”

 

14. Name, describe, and identify examples of three general methods of research in psychology. In particular, know the components of an experiment: (a) hypothesis, (b) defining variables (dependent and independent); (c) random selection and random assignment of subjects; (d) treatment and control groups, and manipulation of the independent variable; (e) statistical analysis of data, and (f) replication.

 

15. Name, describe, and be prepared to identify examples of three specific research methods in Developmental Psychology (cross-sectional, longitudinal, and longitudinal-sequential).