1. PSYC 206
Lifespan Development
Bilge Yagmurlu

2. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
Zone of Proximal Development:
The gap between what children can accomplish independently and what they can accomplish when interacting with others who are more competent.
Scaffolding: children learn better through finely tuned interactions with others who are more competent.

3. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
Zone of Proximal Development

5. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
Scaffolding (Jerome Bruner)
has come to be used for “interactional support”
often in the form of adult-child dialogue (vertical relationships rather than horizontal ones)
structured by the adult to maximise the growth of the child’s functioning
includes the gradual withdrawal of adult control and support as a function of children’s increasing mastery of a given task.

6. Popular Model within Education
Scaffolding recognizes the social aspect of learning
With appropriate scaffolding, children can learn quicker and more effectively than they are able to by trial-and-error problem solving alone.

7. Popular Model within Education

8. Plasticity of the Trait
Phenotypic canalization
“auto-regulatory mechanism”: a process that produces a consistent phenotype in spite of varibale genetic or environmental features.

9. Heritability
Assessed through kinship studies: Behavioral Genetics Methods
Family Studies
Twin Studies
Adoption Studies

10. Genetic Inheritance Chromosome Ovum contains 23 Sperm contains 23
Zygote contains 46 or 23 pairs

12. Genetic Inheritance
Chromosomes containing DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) are situated in the nucleus of a cell.
Genes are functional units of heredity which are composed of DNA.

13. Human Genome Project
Genome is the set of complete instructions for making an organism, containing all the genes in that organism
Completed in 2003, the HGP was a 13-year project coordinated by the U.S. with contributions from UK, Japan, France, Germany, China, etc.
Some goals:
identify all the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA
transfer related technologies to the private sector
address the ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) that may arise

14. Heritability Assessed through kinship studies:
Family Studies: Studies that correlate degree of genetic overlap among family members with degree of similarity in developmental outcomes

15. Heritability Family Studies
Example: a disorder might be described as “running in a family” if more than one person in the family has the condition
Example: “Anxiety disorders run in families”:
70% had a 1st degree relative with an anxiety disorder
45% had a 2nd degree relative with an anxiety disorder
role of inheritance and environment

16. Heritability: Twin Studies
Identical
twins
Fraternal
Same
sex only
Same or
opposite sex
Identical Twins
develop from a single fertilized egg that splits in two, creating two genetically identical organisms
Fraternal Twins
develop from separate eggs
genetically no closer than brothers and sisters

17. Heritability Twin Studies: Monozygotic Twins (100% shared genes)
Dizygotic Twins (50% shared genes)
If identical twins are more alike than fraternal twins, then the increased similarity can be due to genetic influences
Relies on the “equal environments assumption”

18. Heritability Twin Studies: Equal environments assumption:
contribution of the shared environment to twin resemblance is equal for MZ and DZ twins
Differences in twin correlations might be at least partly explained by treatment effects from parents etc.

19. Phenomena of Niche Construction:
Refers to how behaviors, activities, and choices of individuals actively shape and modify the environment in which they live
Example: unusually quiet infants

20. Heritability Adoption Studies:
Examine the correlations between adopted children and their adoptive parents, or adopted children and their genetic parents

21. Adopted / Separated Twins
Investigators have also studied identical twins who were separated early in life and reared apart.
Any similarities in traits between them should be primarily genetic and should permit a direct estimate of heritability.

22. III. The Coevolution of Culture and Biology
the process that emerges from the interaction of biological evolution and cultural evolution.

23. III. The Coevolution of Culture and Biology
Example 1.
The skeletal structure of humans and other primates are highly similar. But there are two main differences that might have caused early humans to develop high technology:
1) bipedalism - walking erect on two feet: gave humans the advantage of free hands to use
2) using thumb in opposition with the other four fingers: made the hand a skillful tool that can perform fine movements and complex functions
These two skillful hands enabled humans to make tools, which is the foundation of technology.

24. III. The Coevolution of Culture and Biology
Example 2.
Brain needs more calories than other organs to function, so a large brain is an expensive luxury to afford. At some point of human evolution, our ancestors started to comsume cooked (not raw) meat, which can supply very high energy due to the fat it contains. This high energy intake enabled humans to have larger brains. And larger brains enabled humans to make the giant progress that has made them different from the rest of the animal kingdom.