Chapter 1

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1.1: How Should We Think About Development?

Development: systematic changes and continuities in the individual that occur between conception and death (from "womb to tomb")

Physical development: The growth of the body and its organs, the functions of physiological systems including the brain, physical signs of aging, changes in motor abilities, and so on.

Growth of body and organs, physiological functioning

Cognitive development: Changes and carryover in personal and interpersonal aspects of development, such as motives, emotions, personality traits, interpersonal skills and relationship, and notes played in the family and in the larger societies

Personal and interpersonal - emotions, personality

Growth: the physical changes that occur from conception to maturity

Biological, physical changes that occur as we mature

Biological aging: the deterioration of organisms (including humans) that leads inevitably to their death

Periods of the Lifespan

Parental period - conception to birth

Infancy - 0-2yrs

Pre-school period - 2-6yrs

Middle childhood - 6-10/puberty

Adolescence - 10/puberty - 18

Emerging adulthood - 18-25yrs

Early adulthood - 25-40yrs

Middle adulthood - 40-65yrs

Late adulthood - 65+yrs

Influences on Development Culture

Age grade: age stratum - is assigned different statuses, index, privileges and responsibilities

Socially defined age group/stage

Right of passage: a ritual that marks a person's passage from 1 status to another, usually in reference to the transition from childhood

A ritual that marks the passage from 1 stage to the next

Age norms: society's way of telling people how to act their age

Unwritten rules that state what society expects us to do at our given age

Social clock: A person's sense of when things should be done and when he or she is ahead of or behind the schedule dictated by age norms

A person's individual sense of when they should be accomplishing things at each age

Socioeconomic status (SES): standing in society based on such indicators as occupational prestige, education, and income

Measure of income and education level

Different SES groups differ in norms

Historical Period

The nature and meanings of periods of the life span also change from one historical period to another

Emerging adulthood: Transition between adolescence and adulthood from age 18-25

Life expectancy: the average number of years a newborn bee is expected to llive

Average number of years a newborn is expected to live

The Nature-Nurture Issue

The question of how biological forces and environmental forces act ind interact to make us what we are

Nature: emphasize the influences of heredity, universal maturation processes guided by genes, biologically based or innate predispotions produced by evolution, biological influences such as hormones and neurotransmitters

Maturation - the biological unfolding of the individual according to the blueprint contained in the genes

Genes - the heredity material passed from parent to child @ conception

Nurture: emphasize change in response to environment

Environment - events or conditions outside the person that are presumed to influence and be influenced by the individual

Learning - the process through which experience brings about relatively permanent changes in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

Nature plus Nurture

Nature - we would expect all children to have basically similar developmental milestones at similar times because of maturation

Nurture - we would generally except human development to take a variety of pathways depending on each individual's life experiences

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1.2 What is the Science of Life-Span Development?

Goals of Studying Development

Describing

Predicting

Explaining

Early Beginnings

Baby Biographies: carefully recorded observations of the growth and development of children by their parents over a period; the first scientific investigations of development

The Modern Life-Span Perspective

1. Development is lifelong process

2. Development is multidirectional

3. Development involves both gain and loss

4. Development is a characterized by lifelong plasticity

Neuroplasticity - the brain's remarkable ability to change in response to experience throughout the life span

5. Development is shaped by its historical cultural context

6. Development is multiple influenced

7. Development must be studied by multiple disciplines

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1.3: How is Development Studied?

Scientific method: a belief that investigators should allow their systematic observations to determine the merits of their thinking

Theory: a set of concepts and propositions intended to describe and explain certain phenomena

Hypotheses: specific predictions regarding a particular set of observations

A good theory should be...

1) Internally consistent - its different parts and propositions should hang together and should not generate contradictory hypothesis

2) Falsifiable - it can be proved wrong

3) Supported by data - can be confirmed by research results

Sample Selection

Sample: the group of individuals studied

Population: a well defined group

Random sample: a sample formed by identifying all members of the larger population and then, by a random means, selecting a portion of that population to study

Data Collection

3 major methods of collecting

Verbal reports

Behavioral observations

Physiological measurements

Verbal reports: Interviews, written questionnaires or surveys, ability and achievement tests, and personality scales all involve asking people questions, either about themselves or about someone else

Interviews, surveys, or test that ask a person to report about themselves or someone else

Naturalistic observations: observing people in their every day surroundings

Observing people in the environment when a behavior naturally occurs

Structured observation: they create special stimuli-task, or situations designed to elicit the behavioral of interest

Type of naturalistic observation where you create a certain situation to see how people respond

Physiological Measurements

fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging): a brain scanning technique that use magnetic forces to measure the increase in blood flow to an area of the brain area is active

Use magnets to measure blood flow in the brain

Case study: an in-depth examination of an individual, typically carried out by compiling and analyzing info from a variety of sources, such as observations, testing and interviewing the person or people who know her

In-dept observations of 1 participant, usually used for rare circumstances

Experiment: an investigator manipulates or alters some aspect of the environment to see how this affects the behavior of the sample of individuals studied

Measures how changing the environment leads to a change in behavior

Independent variable (IV): the variable manipulated so that its casual effects can be assessed

Variable the experiments control and change

Dependent variable (DV): have a different effects on the behavior expected to be affected

The effect/ results, depends on the IV

Critical Features of an Experiment

Random assignments: of participants to different experimental conditions helps ensure that the treatment groups are similar in all respects at the outset

Manipulation of the independent variable: investigators must arrange for different groups to have different experiences so that the effects of those experiences can be assessed (playing people into experimental control groups)

Experimental control: all factors other than the independent variable are controlled or held constant so that they cannot contribute to differences among the treatment groups (other variables are controlled)

Quasi-experiment: participants are not randomly assigned to groups

Correlational Method: involves determining whether 2 or more variables are related in a systematic way

Examines the relationship between 2 or more things to see if they vary together (no actual cause)

Correlation coefficient: an index of the extent to which individuals scores on one variable are systematically associated with their scores on another variable

The degree that 1 variable influences another

Positive +1.0 Negative -1.0

Directionality problem: the direction of the cause-effect relationship could be the reverse of what researcher thinks it is

Are my results because A caused B? Or did B cause A

Third variable problem: the association between the 2 variables of interest may be caused by some variable

Are my results related to an outside variable

Meta-analysis: the results of multiple studies the same questions can be synthesized to produce overall conclusion

Combining the results of several different studies to get an overall average

Developmental Research Designs

3 types research

Cross-section design

Longitudinal design

Sequential study

Cross-sectional design: the performances of people of different age groups or cohorts, are compared

Different age groups are compared @ the same time to see how they differ

Cohort: a group of individuals born @ the same time, either in the same year or within a specified span of years

Group of people born @ the same time

Age effects: the relationship between age and a particular aspects of development

Relationships between age and development

Cohort effect: the effects of being born as a member of a particular cohort or generation in a particular historical context

Unable to tell if it's actually their age that's causing the difference/ something they experience as a generation

Longitudinal Design: one cohort of individuals is assessed repeatedly over time

Same group of individuals is followed over, helps you see how individuals change over time

Time of Measurement Effect: the effects of historical events and trends occurring when the data are collected

Unable to tell if it's something that actually changes with age, or something that would happen over time

Sequential design: combines the cross-section approach and the longitudinal approach in a single study

Combines the 2 approaches - takes group of people in several cohorts and follows them over time

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1.4: What Special Challenges do Developmental Psychologists Face?

Ethnocentrism: the belief that one's own group and its culture are superior

Research ethics: the standards of conduct that investigators are ethically bound to honor to protect their research participants from

Informed consent: researchers generally should inform potential participants of all aspects of the research that might affect their decision to participate

Debriefing: researchers generally tell participants about the purposes of the study in advance, but in some causes doing so wound ruin the study

Protection from harm: researchers are bound not to harm research participants either physically or psychologically

Confidentiality: researchers also have an ethical responsibility to keep confidential the information they collect

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Extra notes

Correlation method

Study of the relationship between 1 variable and another (without investigators manipulation and control of people experiences)

No random assignments (so comparison groups may not be similar in all respects

Lack of control over extraneous variables

Can suggest but not firmly establish that one variable causes another owing to directionality and 3rd variables

Can be used to study many imports issues that cannot be studied experimentally for ethical reasons

Can study multiple influences operating in natural settings (findings may generalize better to the "real world")