Developmental 1) Evaluate psychological research relevant to developmental psychology a) Vygotsky (1978) i) Zone of Proximal Development; learning precedes development

ii) Level of cognition between most advanced cognition capable by young children, and most advanced cognition young child is capable only with adult guidance iii) External processing becomes internalized symbolic thought iv) New accomplishments raise the next ZPD v) Children can only learn so much; adults or more capable peers allows children to rise to top of developmental zone vi) Play is also important to ZPD, allows children to act more maturely than they do in normal life vii) Meaning has bigger significance, and real play is socially and culturally motivated/contributes to development b) Bruner (1996) i) LASS: language acquisition support system ii) Parents act like scaffolds for children to develop iii) Growth and development occurs along with language development iv) Enactive phase(action patterns), then ikonic phase (thinking in images), then symbolic phase (symbolic thinking) c) Qi Wang (2007) i) Studied narrative exchanges between mother and children in three groups ii) Participants: 71 European American pairs, 58 Chinese pairs living in China, 60 first-generation Chinese living in US iii) Methodology: collected data on elaboration level mothers used and level of elaboration effect on childs personal memories (1) Two questionnaires (2) Narrative exchanges iv) Results: (1) EA mothers used high elaboration; EA children recalled more autobiographical memories (2) Correlation found between hearing hih-elaboration stories and reporting more past memories (3) Mothers value orientation toward an interdependent or independent self and their level of elaboration in the narrative exchanges d) 44 Thieves Study (Bowlby, 1944) i) Aim: to investigate effects of maternal deprivation on people in order to see whether delinquents have suffered deprivation. According to Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis, breaking maternal bond with child during early stages of life is likely to have serious effects on intellectual, social and emotional development ii) Procedure: Interviewed participants between 1936-1939 iii) Participants: opportunity sample of 88 children selected from clinic where Bowlby worked (1) 44 juveniles were thieves; referred to him because of stealing (a) Self-diagnosed 32% (14) as affectionless psychopaths (having no affection for others and no shame or sense of responsibility) (2) 44 controls recommended to him due to emotional problems; did not display any anti-social behavior (3) IQ and emotional attitudes towards tests tested by psychologist; social worker interviewed a parent to record details of childs early life (a) Both made separate reports (4) Psychiatrist (Bowlby) conducted an initial interview with child and accompanying parent

iv) Results: 86% of affectionless psychopaths in group 1 experienced long period of maternal separation before age of 5 years (1) Only 17% of the thieves not diagnosed as affectionless psychopaths had experienced maternal separation. Only 2 of the control group had experienced prolonged separation in their first 5 years v) Conclusion: maternal separation/deprivation in childs early life caused permanent emotional damage (1) diagnosed condition as Affectionless Psychopathy; involves lack of emotional development, characterized by lack of concern for others, lack of guilt and inability to form meaningful and lasting relationships vi) Critiques: (1) Sample not representative; contained gender bias (2) Research in form of highly-detailed and thoroughly-comprehensive case studies (a) Bowlbys were triangulated, nevertheless, cannot be generalized as case study findings are unique to case being studied (3) Research was correlational, non-experimental; separation/deprivation cannot be manipulated as IV, thus cause and effect cannot be inferredmany possible factors could have led to it (4) Vulnerable to researcher bias; Bowlby made diagnoses himself, and knew where the children belonged e) Ainsworth and Bell (1971) i) Strange situation ii) Participants: 12-18 month old infants from 100 middle-class American faimilies iii) Method: placed in situation where each paradigm of reaction towards separation that the child could be experience could be observed iv) Results: (1) Three types of attachment (2) 20% were avoidant, 70% were secularly attached, and 10% were ambivalent (3) Type of attachment correlated to type of care parent provided to child f) Erikson (1950) i) Main challenge of identity: form clear sense of identity (1) Develop identity in domains such as: career, occupations, sexual orientation, personal beliefs and values ii) Confronted by need to establish identities for themselves; may be challenging since there are strong social and cultural pressures to behave like an adult iii) Moratorium: adolescents experience identity crisis, but society allows young person to experiment with and explore different ideas about careers, sexual identity, and personal values before making adult commitments iv) Difficulties in coping with crisis can result in role confusion later in life; develop unstable sense of self (1) Possible that adolescent may engage in subgroups and develop negative/socially unacceptable identity v) Evaluation: (1) Good face validity; people can relate to Eriksons theories (2) Theory is descriptive rather than experimental; relied mainly on use of interviews and questionnaires presenting problems of interpretation and biased answering (3) Work is a tool to think with rather than a factual analysis; purpose is to provide framework rather than testable theory g) Rutter (1976) Isle of Wight Study; investigated concept of crisis i) Participants: 2030 adolescent boys aged 14-15 years ii) Procedure: (1) Studied parent child conflict and inner turmoil

(2) Data included questionnaires completed by parents and teachers, as well as interviews with some sample and psychiatric assessments iii) Result: average adolescent is not in state of conflict, only 1/5 reported feeling miserable/depressed iv) Question idea of adolescence as a time of crisis h) Evaluation: dependent on self-report data, which questions its reliability; furthermore generalizability of results and findings 2) Evaluate theories of cognitive development a) Piaget i) Knowledge consists of cognitive structures- Schemas ii) genetic epistemology- focused on the way that new schemas emerge iii) First experience are based on limited innate repertoire then modified through experience (adaptation) (1) Assimilation: When new information can be integrated into existing cognitive schemas (2) Accommodation : When existing cognitive schemas have to be altered because they no longer match new experiences iv) Emphasizes the role of environment and biological factors v) Studied his own children and colleagues children in Geneva b) Vygotsky, Brunner, Qi Wang 3) Examine attachment in childhood and its role in the subsequent formation of relationships. a) Bowlby (1944), Ainsworth (1971) b) Hazan & Schafer (1997) 4) Discuss potential effects of deprivation or trauma in childhood on later development a) Bowlby (1944) b) The case of Genie (Curtiss, 1977) i) Pseudonym for child who spent nearly all first 13 years of life locked inside a bedroom strapped to a potty chair ii) Victim of one the most severe cases of social isolation in American history; discovered on Nov. 4, 1970 (1) Regularly beaten, received virtually no intellectual stimulation or affection (2) Developed little language and was indifferent to adults iii) Fostered for a time by adults, then two psychologists studying her iv) Evaluation: (1) Experienced number of foster carers and changes, physically abused again; factors confounded studies attempting to measure progress (2) Genie may have been born mentally challenged c) Koluchova (1971) i) Case study on abused children ii) a longitudinal study on a pair of Czech twin boys born in 1960 iii) the mother had died when they were born iv) spent first 11 months in an institution, father remarried and they lived with his wife from age 18 months to 7 years v) stepmother kept them in conditions of severe deprivation (1) spent time in unheated room, separated from the rest of the family, or in a cellar (2) not enough food, suffered from vitamin deficiency (3) had no access to excise or stimulation apart from the contact with each other (4) nobody knew of their existence vi) Age 7, the boys were found and they could hardly walk, play, or speak vii) Sent to preschool home for children and eventually placed in foster care, then adopted by two caring sisters viii) Placed into a school for mentally retarded childrenmade progress. Then placed in a normal school

ix) IQs were around 40 when found and the by age 14 one had risen to 100 and another to 90 x) School performance was good and they were motivated xi) Functioned normally academically, socially well adjusted, had realistic ideas about further education xii) Married and lived normal family lives 5) Define resilience. Describe and evaluate one strategy to build resilience. a) Kauai Longitudinal Study (Werner & Smith, 1998) i) Longitudinal study of multiracial cohort of 698 children from poor neighborhoods in 1955 (1) Investigated at ages 1, 2, 10, 18, 32, and 40 years (2) 30% experienced cluster of risk factors (3) Born, raised in poverty, complications around birth, reared by mothers with hardly any education (4) 2/3 of children exposed to 4+ risk factors by age 2 developed learning/behavioural problems at age 10, delinquency records/mental problems by age 18 (5) 1/3 did not show negative outcomes (a) Developed into competent, confident, and caring adults (b) Succeeded in school, home, and social lives (c) Had realistic goals and expectations for themselves (d) Worked hard at age 40, with no specific problems, linked to protective factors (i) Protective factors: intelligence, sociability, special talents, close relationship to a parent or parental substitute, authoritative parents, socio-economic resources, good school, and relationships with pro-social adults ii) Critique (1) Which cultures did she test? (2) Does this affect children which represent cultures in the context of their own homeland? (3) Why only poor neighborhoods? (4) Its quite unpredictable, only 1/3? (a) What about the other 2/3 that could have had the protective factors? b) Love et al (2005) evaluated effectiveness of Early Head Start programs (longitudinal) i) Sample: 3001 racially-diverse families from 17 different programs throughout US (1) Experimental group: received services (1513 families) (2) Control group: denied services (1488 families) ii) IV: whether or not they received help, DV: overall family development iii) Procedure: (1) Data collection done through video-tapes of families and child assessments iv) Conclusion: children performed better in cognitive and language development, displayed higher attention span and parental engagement, and had less aggressive behavior; parents also more emotionally supportive c) Lee et al (1990) conducted longitudinal study to follow-up on Project Head Start in disadvantaged black children in kindergarten and grade 1 i) Sample: 646 black children used in previous study from 1969-1970 (1) 295 from Trenton, NJ, and 351 were from Portland, OR (2) 51.5% had Head Start, 31.6% had no preschool, 16.9% had other preschool ii) Procedure: (1) Several tests assessed students perceptual reasoning, language acquisition, and social competence iii) Results: Head Start Children maintained gains in education and development immediately after participating in program compared to those who did not have preschool (1) However they were on par with those in preschool

(2) Concluded that having programs helped child development, not so much having Head Start programs per se iv) Evaluation 6) Discuss the formation and development of gender roles. a) Dr. Money 1974 biology determines gender and how one thinks and feels as a result of hormones i) Conducted a longitudinal case study on Brenda (David) Reimer, who Money advised to be raised as a girl Davids penis burnt off in a routine circumcision ii) At 22 was surgically castrated, given oestrogen, and had a vagina canal constructed; raised as a girl iii) Behaved like a typical girl, preferred dresses to trousers; Money used this as evidence for theory iv) Later revealed he hated dresses, preferred to play with brothers toys v) Felt very lonely and different from other girls, as well as intimidated by Money vi) Refused to have further surgery or take any more estrogen b) Martin and Halvorson (1983) construct schema for own gender, and schema causes them to act according to their gender; likely to encode and remember info consistent to schema and forget or distort inconsistent info i) Boys and girls aged 5-6 ii) Showed pictures of that were gender consistent (girls playing with dolls) and gender inconsistent (girls playing with guns) iii) Found that children distorted the scene with gender inconsistent behavior c) Bandura (1977) occurs as a result of childs experiences, not biology i) Learns to behave in ways which are rewarding to avoid punishment ii) Societal expectations about ways in which boys and girls should behave lead to sex-typed behavior through rewards and punishments iii) Fagot et al. (1985) (1) Observed convenient sample kids (age 2) at nursery schools in play grounds (2) Teachers reward/punish kids accordingly (3) Male games included playing blocks or play fighting (4) Female games included dressing up or playing with dolls (5) When rewarded, they engaged in the rewarded activity longer 7) Describe adolescence. Discuss the relationship between physical change and development during adolescence. a) Erikson (1950) and Rutter (1976) b) Simmons and Blyth (1987): cultural ideal hypothesis i) Puberty brings boys closer to their ideal body while it brings girls further away from their ideal body (1) Boys have cultural demands and boys are required to become big and strong (2) Puberty allows them to fulfill those demands, creating satisfaction with boys self-perception (3) Western perception of thinness as beauty often results in dissatisfaction amongst girls with selfperception (4) Puberty causes girls to increase in hip size and distribution of fats and muscle tissue is not as ideal ii) Evaluation (1) Does not provide a perspective that is broad enough to consider other cultures (2) No studies conducted to show that this is true c) Ferron (1997): small scale survey examining emotional and relational components of body image cross-culturally i) Sample: 60 US and 60 French adolescents, equal representation of boys and girls ii) Procedure: (1) Semi-structured interviews conducted and themes found from transcriptions of text iii) Results: 75% US adolescents rejected their own body image; American sample had individuals who strived after an ideal body image

(1) French did not have any issues with body image iv) Evaluation: (1) Study shows cultural values play a significant role in development of identity during adolescence (a) Disproves cultural ideal hypothesis? (2) Issues of small sample size; cannot be generalized to entire populations (3) Observer and interviewer bias; problems with answering questions from the subjects

Abnormal Psychology 1) To what extent do biological, cognitive and sociocultural factors influence abnormal behaviour? a) (Caspi 2003) i) Aim: To investigate the relationship between the 5-HTT gene (The serotonine transporter gene) and depression ii) Participants: 847 Caucasian New Zealanders (1) three groups: one short allele, two short alleles, or two long alleles of 5-HTT iii) methodology: gave out questionnaires about stressful life events and having depression symptoms, filled out life history survey, and measured depression levels between ages 25 and 26 using DSM-IV requirements for depression iv) Dependent variable: Self report on depression v) Controls: Checked that participants were honest in self report by cross checking with friend, same levels of stressful life events vi) Findings: Having a short allele of the 5-HTT gene correlated with increased vulnerability for depression between ages of 21 to 26 b) Beck (1976) cognitive distortion theory of depression i) Schema processing : store schemas about the self interfere with information processing ii) By observing depressive patients he found out that patients receives a negative cognitive triad characterized by (1) Overgeneralization : based on negative evens (2) Non-logical interference :about self (3) Dichotomous thinking: black and white thinking, only recalling the negative consequences iii) Negative cognitive schemas are activated by stressful events and patients overreact iv) If a person has negative expectations about the future then the depression will go in a cycle v) *Most people who suffer from depression have irrational beliefs and cognitive biases such as harsh selfcriticism and pessimism c) Rosenhan (1973) 2) Evaluate psychological research (that is, theories and/or studies) relevant to the study of abnormal behavior a) Caspi 2003) b) Beck 1976 cognitive distortion theory of depression c) Goldapple (2004) d) many social factors and how they play into causing mental disorders, such as poverty, redundancy, anything you can list, then relate it back to poor diagnosis/cultural stereotypes - Rosenhan (1973) 3) Examine the concepts of normality and abnormality. a) Statistical Infrequency: defines abnormality as deviation from the statistical norm meaning infrequently occurring behavior i) Many statistically rare behaviors are desirable and healthy ii) many behaviors considered norm in a particular society or culture that we would not call normal or would be inappropriate to label as abnormal iii) equates normality with conformity; many non-conformists are valuable, without whom significant advances would never be made iv) no agreed definition of deviation from norm to be considered abnormal b) Deviation from social norms: defines abnormality as behavior which departs from what is acceptable in a particular society i) abnormal behavior can never have universal meaning; judgments will vary form society to society ii) many behaviors occur that can be socially acceptable, but many would see it as abnormal; assumes one set of standard is as good as any if behavior is socially acceptable iii) societal standards change; different sections of society can set different standards c) Deviation from ideal mental health: normal is mentally healthy, abnormal is deficiency form mental health i) Jahoda (1958) (1) self-attitude (2) personal growth

4)

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7) 8)

(3) integration (4) autonomy (5) perception of reality (6) environmental mastery ii) advantages: focuses on positive approach to problems iii) disadvantages: not everyone will achieve all those objectives, only is a measure of extent which one is successful; few people would be considered normal; some behaviors might not be considered normal in other cultures Discuss validity and reliability of diagnosis a) Rosenhan 1973, b) Rosenhan 1973 follow up study c) Cooper et al. 1972 Discuss cultural and ethical considerations in diagnosis a) Rosenhan 1973 - labeling; hospitalization i) Psychosurgery, Electroconvulsive therapy, drugs b) Tabassum (2008) - cultural attitudes towards diagnosis; differences in symptomology i) Aim: investigate attitudes of Pakistani families living in UK urban area towards mental health issues, and to identify emic models used and compare them to etic models in Western medicine (1) Explore needs of community, especially women, in relation to mental health services ii) Participants: 22 males, 29 1st gen women, and 23 second gen women iii) Interviews held with family groups in participants homes spoke English, Urdu, Punjabi or combination iv) Only seven families allowed researchers to record interviews (1) Took detailed notes and categorized responses immediately after the interview v) Asked questions about perception of disorder causes, help-seek-behavior, family perception, and reaction to mental disorder, community status of people with mental disorder vi) Results: emic description of metnal disorder centering on physical symptoms (1) Fairly knowledgeable about Western etic mental health models (2) 63% viewed aggression as main symptom of abnormality (3) 63% emphasizing stress as a primary factor (4) 25% attributed mental disorders to supernatural causes, 35% believed in faith healers (5) Males thought Gp should be consulted, women less identified, possibly due to language barriers vii) Evaluation: successfully identified barriers women face in getting mental health services, uncovered differences between emic and etic approaches to understanding mental health disorder c) Culture-bound syndromes i) Vs.a biological explanation for disorder? Does that mean we should interpret abnormal behavior in context of culture? ii) Eg. Koro (China), Amok (Malaysia) and Dhat (India) Describe symptoms and prevalence of one disorder (Depression). a) symptoms: depressed mood, loss of interest or pleasure, significant weight loss/gain or increase/decrease in appetite nearly every day, insomnia or hypersomnia, psychomotor agitation or retardartion, fatigue or loss of energy, feelings of worthlessness or excessive inappropriate guilt, diminished ability to think or concentrate, recurring thoughts of death, suicidal ideation b) lifetime prevalence: 16.6% Analyze etiologies of one disorder ( Depression) a) Biological - McGuffin et al. 1996, Cognitive - Alloy et al 1999, Socio-cultural - Chiao 1999 Discuss the relationship between etiology and therapeutic approach in relation to one disorder a) Keller and colleagues (2008) compared CT with antidepressant, and a combination of both i) 681 participants between ages 18 and 75 from 12 different outpatient clinics ii) Randomly assigned to receive either three for 12 weeks iii) Results showed combined had greatest amount of improvement iv) Issues: lack of placebo group, financially supported by Bristol-Myers Squibb, not a lab experiment lacks essential details to call it a true lab experiment as it is not well controlled

b) Babyak and Colleagues (2000) i) 156 participants interested in exercise aged 50 or older (1) No meds, no substances, not suicidal ii) Randomly separated into three groups: exercise group, antidepressants group, and both (1) Groups with exercise took aerobic exercise sessions each week for 16 weeks (2) After 16 weeks, all three groups showed similar remission rates (60.4%, 65.5%, and 68.8%) iii) Examined at three different times: after 16 weeks, six months, then full 10-month period (1) Reports showed that those who only had exercise had lower rates of depression than the other two groups iv) Conclusion: exercise is a valuable depression treatment v) Issues: lacks control group, not true lab study, possible that participants responded to advertisements were more likely to show negative attitudes toward drug treatments, the fact that participants answered to an advertisement meant they were suspect (eg. expectations for improvement) c) Teasdale et al (2000) investigated MBCT i) 145 depressed patients in remission or recovery from maj. depression ii) randomly assigned to either continue current treatment or begin MBCT (1) those who took MBCT were taught to become disengaged from thinking, were thinking was viewed as not as important, perhaps more trivial (2) learned they had a choice, no longer had to automatically accept and react to negative thoughts and emotions as they did in the past (3) compared to thoughts of those who take CT, who change the content or meaning of cognitive actions iii) results: participants of MBCT experienced 50% less relapse rates than those who continued regular treatment (1) effect strongest with those who have had three or more episodes of depression iv) issues: selectivity of patients, as they do not seem to be screened for any other issue besides depression,