Prep Guide 7- Carley Thomas

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California State University, Chico *

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321

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Psychology

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Oct 30, 2023

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PREPARATION GUIDE 7 Based on: Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). Behave – Chapters 6 & 7 1. Adolescence and risky business: In adults, looking at an “affective facial display” activates the amygdala, followed by activation of the emotion-regulating vmPFC as they habituate to the emotional content. (a) In contrast, what happens with adolescents?; Due to reduced prefrontal cortex activation during risky decision-making, adolescents tend to make poorer risk assessments than do adults. (b) Describe the particular form of faulty risk-assessment made by adolescents.; In contrast to herd animals, like impalas, adolescent primates are not driven from the group by the dominant animal. Instead, they "desperately crave novelty". (c) How do you think this fits with the picture of differing risk-tolerance between adolescents and adults?; (d) In your view, how might this be an adaptive characteristic of adolescent development? (3 points) a. The amygdala keeps growing and the vmPFC is less responsive b. Adolescents can judge risk whether it can have a bad outcome or good. Depending on the action they can determine the outcome of the event (ie: skipping school and failing class, which is not likely to happen if they show up on test days and do some important/ highly weighted homework) c. Since the PFC is less developed, adolescents use less of it when determining an action compared to an adult with the same thought process but a fully developed PFc, leading to risk-taking. d. Adolescents have an advantage for risk-taking since their brains aren’t fully developed, they will take more risks, which could benefit the group or social system to end up following the risky individual lead in trying out a new activity that may interest others in the group. 2. The upside: Not everything about adolescent development results in negative outcomes. For adolescents, increased moral sophistication, and ability to contemplate the pain of others is coupled increased sensitivity to the emotional expressions of others, and an astounding ability to be empathetic. Furthermore, adolescents seek novelty, and ignore negative feedback in risk assessment. (a) How do you think this constellation of characteristics leads to important and inventive social problem-solving?; Sapolsky makes an argument that the delay of development in – what is arguably the most sophisticated, and important part of human physiology – the frontal cortex is important because it helps provide a tremendous weight of experience to this development. In effect, he says, human evolution has created a portion of the brain that is – at least more so than any other part of the human body – relatively free from direct genetic influence. (b) How well does this argument resonate with you?; (c) Do you think it supports or undermines the argument that adolescents are less culpable than adults? (3 points)

a. We tend to look at the other side of the conversation and try to understand anothers perspective on things, especially while an adolescent because we are learning, growing, and exploring. b. I think that the PFC is very much influenced by genetic influences due to its functions in decision-making, which we've discussed can be a genetic social influence of the “us vs them” mentality c. I think adolescents may not be as thought out or planned as adults but I think they are as capable as adults because they still can problem solve and make deciosions. Although they may have some decisions that may be risky or questionable. They are still able to make them regardless of whether or not they are fully developed or not. 3. Stages of development & Theory of Mind: Sapolsky introduces Piaget's (1973; 1979) stagewise theory of development. (a) Name and briefly describe each of Piaget's four stages of child development.; Theory of Mind (ToM) is an important childhood development. (b) Describe ToM and (c) give a clear example of a social understanding only possible after achieving this developmental stage.; Various cortical regions mediate ToM. (d) Name these regions.; Sapolsky names four stages in the chain of ToM development. (e) What are they?; Sapolsky gives two examples to illustrate social and emotional (non-cognitive) factors influencing ToM implementation by young children that challenge the simple stagewise (cognitive-based) theory of ToM development. (f) Describe one of the examples. (5 points) a. Stage 1: sensorimotor stage the direct senses, stage 2: preoperational stage understanding the world at a basic level, stage 3: concrete operational stage logical thinking, and stage 4: formal operational stage using metacognition and reasoning (closer to adulthood) b. Understanding that others think, feel, understand, believe, etc more than they really do c. Something that can only be understood after this stage is false beliefs that have an understanding of metaphors, irony, perspectives, etc d. The 4 regions are the (TPJ) temporoparietal junction, medial PFC, superior temporal sulcus, and the precuneus 4. Empathy: In a display of rudimentary empathy, a toddler will try to comfort someone feigning crying (or presumably really crying), offering them her pacifier. (a) What makes this display of empathy rudimentary, rather than well-developed?; When seven-year-olds watch someone in pain, activation is greatest in the more concrete regions, such as the periaquaductal grey (PAG), sensory and motor cortices, and a small amount of vmPFC activation. (b) But in older kids what begins to happen? (c) Preschoolers tend to be egalitarians, but to whom?; Soon after kids start responding negatively to someone else being treated unjustly, they begin attempting to rectify previous inequalities. (d) For adolescents, what interesting sex difference is

there in this domain?; (e) Under what circumstances do both sexes acquiesce to inequality? (3 points) a. Rudimentary empathy is the child understanding the pain of the other person as if it was their own and comforting them as such, if they were in that kind of distress or pain the toddler would want the pacifier. b. Active limbic structures, strong vmPFc has to engage with ToM c. Preschoolers are like this to familiar individuals d. Adolescent boys accept each other more than girls 5. Moral reasoning: In the 1950s Lawrence Kohlberg, then a graduate student at the University of Chicago and later a professor at Harvard, began formulating his monumental stages of moral development. (a) Describe the moral conundrum he presented to children at various developmental stages.; (b) What did he conclude?; (c) Briefly describe each of Kohlberg's three levels of moral reasoning, identifying the two stages within each level.; Naturally, Kohlberg’s work has problems. First among them: it's a stagewise model. The reasons that all stagewise models are limited in applicability is that there are exceptions, maturational transitions are not clean cut, and someone’s stage can be context dependent. Choose one of the three other limitations to describe that you think is the strongest criticism of Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development. (d) Explain that limitation; and (e) explain why you think it is a robust criticism. (4 points) a. The moral test question was if a woman should steal the only dose left of a drug that is the only way that can save her from dying because she can’t afford it. b. He concluded that reasoning and moral judgment is a cognitive processes and came up with his stages of conditioning. c. Level 1 pre-conventional reasoning (stage 1 punishment, stage 2 reward), level 2 conventional reasoning (stage 3 thinking of others, stage 4 having order), level 3 post-conventional reasoning (stage 5 bending the rules to fit, stage 6 resting at moral standpoint) d. The limitation is you can't predict what the right answer will be e. It is robust because you can't possibly predict every single outcome 6. Attachment Theory: In the 1950s the British psychiatrist John Bowlby challenged the view of infants as simple organisms with few emotional needs – his “attachment theory”. He proposed that infants needed more than food from their caregivers. (a) What else did he suggest that they needed?; Bowlby's attachment theory garnered support from two surprising (and very different) studies. One by psychologist Harry Harlow, and one by legal scholar John Donahue and economist Steven Levitt. (b) Describe how each of these two studies provides evidence that provision of emotional needs by a child's mother is critical to outcomes. (3 points) a. Warmth, affection, responsiveness, etc

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b. Knowing that your mother is happy that you exist 7. Adversity: Harlow also performed a study demonstrating social learning in monkeys by isolating monkeys completely for a long period before introduction to a social group. (a) What was the resultant behavior of the monkeys; and (b) what does Sapolsky argue that mothers and peers teach developing youngsters?; Work by Regina Sullivan demonstrates that glucocorticoids (stress hormones) are not secreted by rat pups exposed to stressful, aversive stimuli as long as their mothers are around. In fact, the pups become attracted to the stressful stimuli instead. (c) In your view, what did this set of studies - as well as Harlow's study with an air-blasting chicken-wire monkey mother - demonstrate about the psychological mechanisms involved for a child exposed to an abusive parent?; Across numerous species, major early-life stressors produce both kids and adults with elevated levels of glucocorticoids and hyperactivity of the sympathetic nervous system. Early exposure to stress hormones reduces the brains ability to control stress hormone production later in life. (d) Name at least three detrimental effects on the brain follow from high exposure to stress hormones in childhood?; Childhood poverty is such an extreme stressor, that the ability to cognitive regulate emotion and impulse-control is vastly reduced. (e) Describe the evidence for this generated by Martha Farah and Tom Boyce.; Childhood adversity also impacts the amygdala. (f) Describe how the amygdala is impacted and the later consequences in adolescence. (g) Describe the effects of childhood adversity on the dopamine system, and the two major consequences those effects.; Witnessing violence is linked with an increased likelihood of perpetrating violence, and this includes witnessing media violence. Poverty is associated with a higher likelihood of witnessing or experiencing violence, with lower rates of adult supervision of children, and with resulting in crime, addiction, domestic violence, and other poor outcomes (socially, academically, future earnings, likelihood of incarceration, etc.). (h) Given that these causes and effects appear cyclical, what do you think is the most important factor to target intervention toward, and why? (6 points) a. They had a hierarchy with an alpha, they also had loners, and they had overly sexual behavior b. Mothers and peers are not the ones to teach motor patterns, the teaching is done when the young need the action, providing context for the action they already know c. An abused child will feel depressed or anxious as abuse drives a wedge between mother and child. d. 3 effects on the brain following high stress in childhood are 1. Depression, anxiety, 2. Low impulse control 3. Frontal cortex damage e. If you experience poverty, it will cause you to be placed near stores and areas that are more prone to substance abuse, which creates a cycle for a new generation after f. Emotions and behavior regulation become harder to control (ie: impulse control), as well as the amygdala gets hyperreactive

g. Childhood adversity can lead to drug and alcohol addiction, depression, stress, and a poorly developed frontal cortex. h. Going to stop the event before it happens is the best for prevent adversity 8. Parenting & cultural factors: Baumrind identified three key parenting styles, to which McCoby & Martin added one more - producing a two-by-two matrix. (a) Name and very briefly describe each of the four parenting styles. (b) Do you agree that one is preferable? Why? (c) Describe how differing environments and goals foster differences in parental style among families with different SES. (3 points) a. Authoritarian: strict, harsh, changing rules and expectations constantly therefore the child can't keep up, use harsh punishments, ignores needs of child. Authoritative: ideal** this is the sweet middle, they give clear and easily obtainable rules and expectations, are firm in punishment, and have good relationships with children. Permissive: few to no demands from children, children run the household, parents give in to children's desires, no punishment. Absent: that's it, they don't care about children or well-being, allow them to do whatever they please, don't have rules or boundaries set, and are not a parent at all. b. I think that authoritative parenting is more ideal or preferable just because children know that there is a standard of rules or boundaries that are set and have an expectation towards their behavior, as well as understanding that children need guidance and a trusted source to air grievances. c. Lower SES cause parenting styles to be authoritarian or absent and high SES allows for authoritative or permissive parenting