Chapter Review
The process of human development and enculturation is complex. Our caretakers and method of schooling serve as two of the most important enculturation agents during childhood. Differences in childrearing choices, traditions, and expectations reflect differences in values and priorities. Developmental factors of goodness-of-fit, attachment, parenting styles, and cognition work to shape a child’s physical and psychological health in culturally diverse ways. There are universal and biological factors (temperament and intelligence), as well as culturally-specific factors that influence our relationships in adulthood. Many of the theories discussed in the chapter are rooted in a Western paradigm of what is ‘best’ and ‘appropriate.” It is important to identify situations and contexts where we might react in ethnocentric ways to parenting choices and styles.
Vocabulary
Attachment refers to a deep and enduring emotional bond that connects one person to another across time and space.
Authoritarian parenting style is characterized by high demandingness with low responsiveness
Authoritative parenting style is characterized by high demandingness with huge responsiveness
Concrete operations stage children overcome tendency to focus on a single dimension and think logically in most situations but cannot think in systematic scientific ways
Cultural neuroscience is a field of research that focuses on the interrelation between a human’s cultural environment and neurobiological systems
Enculturation describes the uniquely human form of learning that is taught by one generation to another.
Enculturation agents are individuals and institutions that serve a role in shaping individual adaptions to a specific culture to better ensure growth and effectiveness
Formal operations period, children attain the reasoning power of mature adults
Goodness-of-fit refers to the interaction of child temperament with caretaker personality and parenting style
Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to change throughout an individual’s life.
Parental responsiveness, which refers to the degree the parent responds to the child’s needs.
Parental demandingness, is the extent to which the parent expects more mature and responsible behavior from a child.
Permissive parenting style is characterized by low demandingness with high responsiveness.
Preoperational stage children can solve not only this simple problem (which they actually can solve after 9 months) but show a wide variety of other symbolic-representation capabilities
Sensitive Period of Development describes a window of opportunity where experiences have a greater impact on certain areas of brain development.
Sensorimotor stage children’s thinking is largely realized through their perceptions of the world and their physical interactions with it
Strange situation, a laboratory task for studying infant, parent attachment
Temperament broadly refers to consistent individual differences in behavior that are biologically based and are relatively independent of learning
