USYD PSYC3016 (Developmental Psychology) 2025 – Complete Visual Lecture Cheat Sheets & Exam Guide

Description

These notes are a 92-page, colour-coded PSYC3016 “cheat sheet portfolio” that turns every lecture (L01–L26) into a set of visual dashboards: core definitions, nature–nurture framing, key studies, myths vs facts, exam traps, formulas, critical quotes, and an “exam tip” box for each topic. They cover the whole unit’s structure – from assessment architecture, AI policy and quiz strategy through to nature vs nurture, twin models, missing heritability, G×E and epigenetics, social cognition, moral development, adolescent risk, language and culture – in my own words, not copied slides or assignments. -x- Each lecture is condensed into high-yield panels (, L02 summarises the heritability formula, Farah’s SES brain study, myth tables for “warrior genes” and genetic determinism, and a “common exam traps” box; L03–L04 walk through ACE/ADE models, twin assumptions, Turkheimer’s measurement problem, differential susceptibility, and epigenetic mechanisms with simple diagrams). This makes it easy to see what’s examinable at a glance, link methods to conclusions, and remember the exact distinctions that get tested (mediation vs moderation, G×E vs rGE, orchid vs dandelion, etc.). -x- Best for: students who want a single, organised file to teach them the whole unit, keep up through semester, and then do fast final-week revision. Pairs perfectly with my separate “PSYC3016 SAQ Evidence Tables & Lecture Summary Portfolio” ($69) if you also want stat-level SAQ scaffolds and memorisable exam sentences for every major study. -x- Contents: L01 – Introduction to Developmental Psychology – what “development” means, multidimensional change over time, key domains (cognitive, social, emotional), sensitive periods, rate-of-change principle, and how developmental lenses apply across all of psychology. L02 – Nature vs Nurture: The Genetics–Environment Debate – genes vs environment as interacting causes, heritability basics, SES and brain development, early deprivation vs enrichment, and why “nature or nurture” is the wrong question. L03 – Behaviour Genetics I: Twin Studies & Heritability – MZ vs DZ logic, ACE/ADE models, core assumptions, interpreting heritability (what it does and doesn’t mean), examples across cognitive ability, personality and disorders. L04 – Behaviour Genetics II: G×E, Differential Susceptibility & Epigenetics – missing heritability, phenotype precision, mediation vs moderation, gene–environment interaction and correlation (G×E vs rGE), orchid–dandelion models, and basic epigenetic mechanisms. L05 – Social Cognition I: Foundations & Comparative Development – self-recognition (rouge test), empathy, contagion, goal understanding across species, early social referencing, and what non-human animals tell us about human social cognition. L06 – Social Cognition II: Theory of Mind – false-belief tasks, explicit vs implicit ToM, developmental timelines, autism vs typical development, and classic paradigm pitfalls. L07 – Social Cognition III: Advanced ToM & Social Reasoning – second-order ToM, sarcasm, faux pas, perspective taking, and links to real-world social competence. L08 – Moral Development I – Kohlberg’s stages, Turiel’s moral vs conventional rules, early prosocial behaviour and fairness, harm vs rule-breaking, and experimental tasks used to probe moral judgement. L09 – Moral Development II – guilt, shame and empathy, moral emotions, harm vs purity concerns, cross-cultural variation in moral priorities, and applied moral dilemmas. L10 – Abnormal Development & Developmental Psychopathology – risk vs resilience, multifinality and equifinality, trajectories (continuous vs discontinuous), comorbidity, and how developmental framing changes diagnosis/treatment. L11 – Adolescent Development – brain maturation (prefrontal vs limbic), reward sensitivity, risk-taking, peer influence, decision-making in context, and implications for school, health and the law. L12 – Parent–Child / Adult–Child Interaction – parenting styles, scaffolding, language input, shared reading/talk, and how interaction quality shapes cognitive and socio-emotional outcomes. L13 – Juvenile Justice & Culpability – age of responsibility, developmental evidence in legal contexts, maturity of judgement, mitigation vs punishment, and policy implications of developmental science. L14 – Classic Theories of Cognitive Development – Piaget’s stages, Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory, information-processing approaches, strengths, limits, and modern reinterpretations. L15–L17 – Infant Cognition I–III – methods (habituation, violation-of-expectation, preferential looking), object permanence, physical reasoning, number, “core knowledge” vs learning accounts, and key infant cognition findings. L18 – Abstract Relational Learning I – analogy, same–different relations, pattern and relational rule learning, and how children move beyond surface similarity. L19 – Abstract Relational Learning II – development of higher-order reasoning, transfer to new domains, schooling and language influences on relational thinking. L20 – Thinking During Play – types of play, pretend play and counterfactual thinking, causal learning through play, and links between play, creativity and problem-solving. L21 – Executive Functions – working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, task paradigms (, Dimensional Change Card Sort), developmental trajectories, and links to academic achievement and behaviour. L22 – Language Development I – phonology, vocabulary growth, word learning mechanisms, early grammar, input quantity/quality, and classic phenomena like over-regularisation. L23–L24 – Language Development II & III: Nativist vs Constructivist – UG vs usage-based theories, evidence from word order and argument structure, children’s errors, poverty of the stimulus debates, and how different models explain acquisition data. L25–L26 – Culture & Conceptual Development – WEIRD vs non-WEIRD samples, cultural variation in parenting and schooling, how culture shapes concepts (time, number, self), and why developmental psychology must go beyond Western samples. -xoxo-