Chapter 1 Flashcards
The question is whether age-related change is primarily a matter of amount or degree (________) or of changes in type or kind (_________)
- A matter of amount or degree (the continuity side of the debate)
- Changes in type or kind (The discontinuity side)
The continuous aspect of friendship is?
That people of all ages have peer relationships
The discontinuous aspect of friendship is?
That the characteristics of friendship itself vary by age
Another way of approaching the continuity-discontinuity question is to think of it in terms of ______ and ______ change.
Quantitative and qualitative change
A quantitative change is
A change in amount, for instance children get taller as they get older. Their heights increase, but the variable of height itself never changes. In other words, height changes continuously; it has continuity from one age to the next
A qualitative change is?
A change in characteristic, kind, or type. For example puberty is a qualitative change. Prior to puberty, humans are incapable of reproduction. After puberty, they can reproduce. Therefore, postpubescent humans possess a characteristic that prepubescent humans do not; the capacity to reproduce. In other words, postpubescent and prepubescent humans are qualitative different, and changes in the capacity to reproduce are discontinuous in nature. Later in life another qualitative change in reproductive capacity occurs when women go through menopause and lose the capacity for reproduction.
Stages are?
Qualitative distinct periods of development
The Christian doctrine of original sin, often attributed to 4th-century philosopher Augustine of Hippo, taught that?
All humans are born with a selfish nature. To reduce the influence of this inborn tendency toward selfishness, Augustine taught, humans must seek spiritual rebirth and submit themselves to religious training. Thus, from this perspective, developmental outcomes, both good and bad, are the result of each individual’s struggle to overcome an inborn tendency to act immorally when doing so somehow benefits the self.
17th Century English philosopher John Locke drew upon a broad philosophical approach known as empiricism when he claimed that the mind of a child is a blank slate. Empiricism is the view that?
Humans possess no innate tendencies and that all differences among humans are attributable to experience. The blank slate view suggests that adults can mold children into whatever they want them to be. Therefore, differences among adults can be explained in terms of differences in their childhood environments rather than as a result of a struggle to overcome any kind of inborn tendencies, as the original-sin view proposed
The innate-goodness view proposed by 18th-century Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He claimed that?
All human beings are naturally good and seek out experiences that help them grow. Rousseau believed that children need only nurturing and protection to reach their full potential. Developmental outcomes are good when a child’s environment refrains from interfering in her attempts to nurture her own development. In contrast, outcomes are poor when a child experiences frustration in her efforts to express the innate goodness with which she was born. Thus, the innate-goodness and original-sin approaches share the view that development involves a struggle between internal and external forces. In contrast to both, the blank slate view sees the child as a passive recipient of environmental influences
Norms
Average ages at which developmental milestones are reached
Maturation
The gradual unfolding of a genetically programmed sequential pattern of change
Arnold Gesell’s research suggested that existence of a genetically programmed sequential pattern of change. Gesell used the term ________ to describe a pattern of change. He thought that maturationally determined development occurred regardless of?
Maturation.
practice, training, or effort. For example, infants don’t have to be taught how to walk- they begin to walk on their own, once they reach a certain age. Because of this strong belief that many important developmental changes are determined by maturation, Gesell spent decades studying children and developing norms. He pioneered the use of movie cameras and one-way observation devices to study children’s behavior.
This man’s findings became the basis for many norm-referenced tests that are used today to determine whether individual children are developing normally
Arnold Gesell
Standardized tests that compare an individual child’s score to the average score of others her age
Norm-referenced tests
Lifespan perspective
The current view of developmentalists that important changes occur throughout the entire human lifespan and that these changes must be interpreted in terms of the culture and context in which they occur, thus, interdisciplinary research is critical to understanding human development
The debate about the relative contributions of biological processes and experimental factors to development is known as?
Nature-nuture debate
The nature-nuture debate is?
The debate about the relative contributions of biological processes and experimental factors to development
The concept of inborn biases is based on?
The notion that children are born with tendencies to respond in certain ways. Some of these inborn biases are shared by virtually all children. For instance, the sequence in which children acquire spoken language-single words precede two-word sentences, and so on-is virtually identical in all children no matter what language they are learning. Babies seem to be equipped with a set of behaviors that entice others to care for them, including crying, snuggling, and very soon after birth, smiling, and they appear to be delighted when their efforts to arouse interest in others are successful
Other inborn biases may vary from one individual to another. Even in the early days of life, for example, some infants are relatively easy to soothe when they become distressed, while others are more difficult to manage. Whether these inborn patterns are coded in the genes, are created by variations in the prenatal environment, or arise through some combination of the two, the basic point is that?
A baby is not a blank slate at birth. Babies seem to start life prepared to seek out and react to particular kinds of experiences
Modern developmentalists have accepted the concept of internal models of experience. The key element to this concept is?
The idea the effect of an experience depends not on its objective properties but rather on the individual’s interpretation- the meaning the individual attaches to that experience. For instance, suppose a friend says, “Your new haircut looks great; it’s a lot nicer when it’s short like that.” Your friend intends to pay you a compliment, but you also hear an implied criticism, so your reactions, your feelings, and even your relationship with your friend are affected by how you interpret the comment-not by what your friend meant or by the objective qualities of the remark.
What is the name of the philosopher who is associated with each view of development
1) Original sin
2) Blank slate
3) Innate goodness
1) Augustine
2) John Locke
3) Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Normative age-graded changes
Changes that are common to every member of a species
Normative age-graded changes are?
Universal, they are common to every individual i a species and are linked to specific age. Some universal changes (like a baby’s first step) happen because we are all biological organisms subject to a genetically programmed maturing process.
A social clock is?
A set of age norms defining a sequence of like experiences that is considered normal in a given culture and that all individuals in that culture are expected to follow
Ageism
A prejudicial view of older adults that characterizes them in negative ways
Normative history-graded changes
Changes that occur in most members of a cohort as a result of factors at work during a specific, well-defined historical period
Nonnormative changes
Changes that result from unique, unshared events
Critical period
A specific period in development when an organism is especially sensitive to the presence
Sensitive period
A span of months or years during which a child may be particularly responsive to specific forms of experience or particularly influenced by their absence.
Atypical period
Development that deviates from the typical developmental pathway in a direction harmful to the individual
naturalistic observation
The process of studying people in their normal environments
The weakness of naturalistic observation is
Observer bias. If the researcher who is observing older adults is convinced that most of them have poor memories, he is likely to ignore any behavior that goes against this view.
Case study
An in-depth examination of a single individual
Laboratory observation
Observation of behavior under controlled conditions
Data-collection in which participants respond to questions
Survey
The entire group that is of interest to a researcher
Population
Subset of a group that is of interest to a researcher who participates in a study
Sample
Representative sample
A sample that has the same characteristics as the population to which a study’s findings apply
Correlation
A relationship between two variables that can be expressed as a number ranging from -1.00 to +1.00
Study that tests a causal hypothesis
Experiment
Experimental group
The group in an experiment that receives the treatment the experimenter thinks will produce a particular effect
Control group
The group in an experiment that receives either no special treatment or a neutral treatment
Independent variable
The presumed causal element in an experiment
Dependent variable
The characteristic or behavior that is expected to be affected by the independent variable
Cross-sectional design
A research design in which groups of people of different ages are compared
Longitudinal design
A research design in which people in a single group are studied at different times in their lives
Sequential design
A research design that combines cross-sectional and longitudinal examinations of development
Cohort effects
Findings that are the result of historical factors to which one age group in a cross-sectional study has been exposed
Random sampling
Method of selecting a sample (random sample) from a statistical population in such a way that every possible sample that could be selected has a predetermined probability of being selected.
Generalization
Induction involves gathering together a collection of bits of data–observations, experimental results, whatever kinds of information are available–and formulating a generalization which reasonably explains all of them. This is analogous to the formation of a hypothesis. You make a set of observations, then hypothesize an explanation which accounts for all of the observations.
Children get taller as they get older. This is an example of _____ change
Continuous, quantitative
Which research design is one group of subjects studied at different times in their lives?
Longitudinal
Which type of research design is intended to avoid the short-comings of both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies by combining features of both?
Sequential design
