Ch 1: History, Theory, and Research Strategies

Question 1

Age-Graded Influences

Answer 1

Events that are strongly related to age and fairly predictable when they occur and how long they will last.

Question 2

Applied Behavioral Analysis

Answer 2

Consists of careful observations of individual behavior and related environmental events, followed by systematic changes in those events based on procedures of conditioning and modeling. The goal is to eliminate undesirable behaviors and increase desirable behaviors.

Question 3

Behaviorism

Answer 3

Directly observable events – stimuli and responses.

Question 4

Chronosystem

Answer 4

The label of Bronfenbrenner’s temporal dimension. Life changes can be imposed externally or can arise from within the person, since individuals select, modify, and create many of their own settings and experiences.

Question 5

Clinical Interview

Answer 5

Researchers use a flexible, conversational style to probe the participant’s point of view.

Question 6

Clinical / Case Study Method

Answer 6

Brings together a wide range of information on one person, including interviews, observations, and test scores.

Question 7

Cognitive-Developmental Theory

Answer 7

Children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore their world. Founder: Jean Piaget.

Question 8

Cohort Effects

Answer 8

Individuals born in the same time period are influenced by a particular set of historical and cultural conditions. Results based on one cohort may not apply to people developing at other times.

Question 9

Contexts

Answer 9

Unique combinations of personal and environmental circumstances that can result in different paths of change.

Question 10

Continuous Development

Answer 10

A process of gradually augmenting the same types of skills that were there to begin with.

Question 11

Correlational Design

Answer 11

Researchers gather information on individuals, generally in natural life circumstances, without altering their experiences. Then they look at relationships between participants; characteristics and their behavior or development.

Question 12

Correlation Coefficient

Answer 12

A number that describes how two measures, or variables, are associated with each other.

Question 13

Cross-Sectional Design

Answer 13

Groups of people differing in age are studied at the same point in time.

Question 14

Dependent variable

Answer 14

Is the one the investigator expects to be influenced by the independent variable.

Question 15

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

Answer 15

It brings together researchers from psychology, biology, neuroscience, and medicine to study the relationship between changes in the brain and the developing person’s cognitive processing and behavior patterns.

Question 16

Developmental Science

Answer 16

A field of study devoted to understanding constancy and change throughout the lifespan.

Question 17

Developmental Social Neuroscience

Answer 17

Is devoted to studying the relationship between changes in the brain and emotional and social development.

Question 18

Discontinuous Development

Answer 18

A process in which new ways of understanding and responding to the world emerge at specific times.

Question 19

Ecological Systems Theory

Answer 19

Views the person as developing within a complex system of relationships affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment. Developed by Urie Brofenbrenner who envisioned the environment as a series of nested structures, including but also extending beyond the home, school, neighborhood, and workplace settings. Each layer joins with the others to powerfully affect development.

Question 20

Ethnography

Answer 20

Ethnographic research is a descriptive and qualitative technique. But instead of aiming to understand a single individual, it is directed toward understanding a culture or a distinct social group through participant observation.

Question 21

Ethology

Answer 21

Ethology is concerned with the adaptive, or survival, value of behavior and its evolutionary history.

Question 22

Evolutionary Developmental Psychology

Answer 22

Seeks to understand the adaptive value of species-wide cognitive, emotional, and social competencies as those competencies change with age.

Question 23

Exosystem

Answer 23

Consists of social settings that do not contain the developing person but nevertheless affect experiences in immediate settings.

Question 24

Experimental Design

Answer 24

Permits inferences about cause and effect because researchers use an evenhanded procedure to assign people to two or more treatment conditions.

Question 25

History-graded Influences

Answer 25

Explain why people born around the same time - called a cohort- tend to be alike in ways that set them apart from people born at other times.

Question 26

Independent Variable

Answer 26

Is the one the investigator expects to cause changes in another variable.

Question 27

Information Processing

Answer 27

The human mind might be viewed as a symbol-manipulating system through which information flows. Similar to how computers process information - in put and then output.

Question 28

Lifespan Perspective

Answer 28

A leading systems approach made up of four assumptions that view development as: (1) Lifelong, (2) multidimensional and multidirectional (3) highly plastic, and (4) affected by multiple, interacting forces.

Question 29

Longitudinal Design

Answer 29

Participants are studied repeatedly, and changes are noted as they get older.

Question 30

Macrosystem

Answer 30

Consists of cultural values, laws, customs, and resources. (Outermost layer of Brofenbrenner’s model)

Question 31

Mesosystem

Answer 31

Encompasses connections between microsystems. Ex, a child’s academic progress depends not just on activities in the classroom but on parent involvement in school life and on the extend of academic learning carried over into the home.

Question 32

Microsystem

Answer 32

The innermost level of the environment. Consists of activities and interaction patterns in the person’s immediate surroundings. Relationships are bidirectional: Adults affect children’s behavior and children’s biologically and socially influenced characteristics - physical attributes, personalities, and capacities also affect adults’ behavior.

Question 33

Naturalistic Observation

Answer 33

A research method involves going out into the field, or natural environment and recording the behavior of interest.

Question 34

Nature vs. Nurture Controversy

Answer 34

Are genetic or environmental factors important? Nature - the hereditary information we receive from our parents at the moment of conception and Nurture is the complex forces of the physical and social world that influence our biological makeup and psychological experiences before and after birth.

Question 35

Nonnormative Influences

Answer 35

Events that are irregular: They happen to just one person or a few people and do not follow a predictable timetable.

Question 36

Plasticity

Answer 36

Throughout development one is open to change in response to influential experiences

Question 37

Psychoanalytic Perspective

Answer 37

People move through a series of stages in which they confront conflicts between biological drives and social expectations. Founders: Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson.

Question 38

Psychosexual Theory

Answer 38

Emphasizes that how parents manage their child’s sexual and aggressive drives in the first few years is crucial for healthy personality development.

Question 39

Id

Answer 39

The largest portion of the mind, is the source for basic biological needs and desires

Question 40

Ego

Answer 40

The conscious, rational part of the personality, emerges in early infancy to redirect the id’s impulses so they are discharged in acceptable ways.

Question 41

Superego

Answer 41

Or the conscience; develops as parents insist that children conform to the values of society.

Question 42

Psychosocial Theory

Answer 42

Emphasized that in addition to mediating between id impulses and superego demands, acquiring attitudes and skills that make the individual active, contributing member of society. Founder: Erik Erikson.

Question 43

Random Assignment

Answer 43

To ensure the accuracy of findings, people are assigned at random to treatment conditions. By using an unbiased procedure, such as drawing numbers out of a hat or flipping a coin, investigators increase the chances that participant’s characteristics will be equally distributed across treatment groups.

Question 44

Resilience

Answer 44

The ability to adapt effectively in the face of threats to development.

Question 45

Sensitive Period

Answer 45

Is a time that is biologically optimal for certain capacities to emerge because the individual is especially responsive to environmental influences. Its boundaries are less well-defined than those of a critical period. Development can occur later, but it is harder to induce.

Question 46

Sequential Designs

Answer 46

To overcome some of the limitations of traditional developmental designs, investigators use this technique in which they conduct several similar cross-sectional or longitudinal studies (called sequences).

Question 47

Social Learning Theory

Answer 47

Emphasizes modeling/imitation/observational learning as a powerful source of development. Founder: Albert Bandura.

Question 48

Sociocultural Theory

Answer 48

Focuses on how culture - the values, beliefs, customs, and skills of a social group – is transmitted to the next generation. Social interaction – in particular, cooperative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society – is necessary for children to acquire the ways of thinking and behaving that make up a community’s culture. Founder: Lev Vygotsky.

Question 49

Stages

Answer 49

Qualitative changes in thinking, feeling, and behaving that characterize specific periods of development.

Question 50

Structured Interview

Answer 50

Includes tests and questionnaires in which each participant is asked the same set of questions in the same way. Is a more efficient method of interviewing.

Question 51

Structured Observations

Answer 51

In which the investigator sets up a laboratory situation that evokes the behavior of interest so that every participant has equal opportunity to display the response.

Question 52

Theory

Answer 52

An orderly, integrated set of statements that describes, explains, and predicts behavior.