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Nature and Nurture: Developing Psychology

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Nature and Nurture: Developing Psychology
Nature and nurture
Developing psychology- the specialized study of how an individual’s physical, social, emotional, moral, and intellectual, development occur in sequential interrelated stages throughout the life cycle.
Some psychologist believe that our behavior is a result or genetic or they were inherited
Others believe that life experiences and learning are what cause certain behaviors

Newborns
Can see, hear, smell, and respond to their environment
Grasping reflex- if you were to touch the center of an infants palm they will grasp, or take hold, of your finger2 that you can actually lift the infant in the air
Rooting reflex- if you were to touch an infant around its mouth, he/she will move its head towards the touch

Physical development
Average infant weighs 7.3 lbs. by the time they are 1 they can weigh 20-25 lbs.
At 2 the child will be able to walk, talk and feed themselves
To develop physically you need to go through maturation and learning experiences

Maturation- internally programmed growth
Learning how to hold your head up, walk (etc.)
Important in the first years
Must be fed well, not restricted in movement or deprived I human contact
None grow at the same rate but all follow the same steps in growing

Perceptual development
Robert Frantz through a study showed that infants preferred to look at human fasces and patterned materials
Visual cliff experiments determined whether infants had any depth perception
Newborns have mature perception skills
Changes in heart rate of very young infants

Development of language
Telegraphic speech- the kind of verbal utterances in which words are left out, but the meaning is usually clear
Language and thought are closely intertwined. Both involve using symbols
Psychologist argue that language is a learned behavior while others claim that it is inborn
10 months is the window of opportunity to learn a language washoe shows that there are several steps to learning a

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