PSY 1102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Prenatal Development, Egocentrism

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1102
• Professor: Ersin Asliturk

Document Summary

Developmental psychology: a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the lifespan. Three major issues: nature and nurture, continuity and stages. What parts of development are gradual and continuous, what parts change abruptly in separate stages: stability and change. Sperm release digestive enzymes that eat away at the egg"s protective coat. Once one sperm penetrates, the egg"s surface blocks out the others. Fewer than half of all fertilized eggs (zygotes) survive beyond the first two weeks. Zygotes inner cells become the embryo, the outer become the placenta (transferring nutrients from mother to baby) Then, as the embryo starts to look more human, it is a fetus. Teratogens are viruses and drugs that can damage an embryo or fetus. Fetal alcohol syndrome is marked by a small, misproportioned head and lifelong brain abnormalities. Alcohol has an epigenetic effect: it leaves chemical marks on dna that switches genes abnormally on or off.