Chapter 1: Intro to developmental psych

Question 1

Developmentalist

Answer 1

any scholar, regardless of discipline who seeks to understand the developmental process.

Question 2

Maturation

Answer 2

developmental changes in the body or behaviour that result from the aging process rather than from life experiences

Question 3

Normative Development

Answer 3

developmental changes that characterize most or all members of a species; typical patterns of development.

Question 4

Ideographic Development

Answer 4

individual variations in the rate, extent, or direction of development

Question 5

Original Sin

Answer 5

idea that children are inherently negative creatures who must be taught to rechannel their selfish interests into socially acceptable outlets.
- Thomas Hobbes

Question 6

Tabula Rasa

Answer 6

idea that infants are born with an intuitive sense of right and wrong that is often misdirected by the demands and restrictions of society

Question 7

Reliability

Answer 7

the extent to which a measuring instrument yields consistent results, both over time and across observers.

Question 8

Validity

Answer 8

the extent to which a measuring instrument accurately reflects what the researchers intended to measure.

Question 9

Structured Interview

Answer 9

a technique in which all participants are asked the same questions in precisely the same order so that the responses of different participants can be compared.

Question 10

Clinical Method

Answer 10

a type of interview in which a participant’s response to each question (or problem) determines what the investigator will ask next.

Question 11

Naturalistic Observation

Answer 11

a method in which the scientist tests hypotheses by observing people as they engage in everyday activities in their natural habitats
- what im doing at my placement

Question 12

Observer Influence

Answer 12

tendency of participants to react to an observer’s presence by behaving in unusual ways.

Question 13

Time Sampling

Answer 13

a procedure in which the investigator records the frequencies with which individuals display particular behaviours during the brief time intervals that each is observed.

Question 14

Structured Observation

Answer 14

an observational method in which the investigator cues the behaviour of interest and observes participants’ responses in a laboratory.

Question 15

Ethnography

Answer 15

where researchers seek to understand the unique values, traditions, and social processes of a culture or subculture by living with its members and making extensive observations and notes.

Question 16

Psychophysiological Methods

Answer 16

methods that measure the relationships between physiological processes and aspects of children’s physical, cognitive, social, or emotional behaviour/development

Question 17

Correlational Design

Answer 17

a type of research design that indicates the strength of associations among variables; though correlated variables are systematically related, these relationships are not necessarily causal.

Question 18

Correlational coefficent

Answer 18

numerical index, ranging from 21.00 to 11.00, of the strength and direction of the relationship between two variables.

Question 19

independent variable

Answer 19

the aspect of the environment that an experimenter modifies or manipulates in order to measure its impact on behaviour

Question 20

dependent variable

Answer 20

the aspect of behaviour that is measured in an experiment and assumed to be under the control of the independent variable.

Question 21

Confounding variable

Answer 21

some factor other than the independent variable that, if not controlled by the experimenter, could explain any differences across treatment conditions in participants’ performance on the dependent variable.

Question 22

Ecological Validity

Answer 22

state of affairs in which the findings of one’s research are an accurate representation of processes that occur in the natural environment.

Question 23

Field Experiment

Answer 23

an experiment that takes place in a naturalistic setting such as home, school, or playground.

Question 24

natural/quasi experiment

Answer 24

a study in which the investigator measures the impact of some naturally occurring event that is assumed to affect people’s lives.

Question 25

cross-sectional design

Answer 25

a research design in which subjects from different age groups are studied at the same point in time.

Question 26

cohort-effect

Answer 26

age-related difference among cohorts that is attributable to cultural/ historical differences in cohorts’ growing-up experiences rather than to true developmental change.

Question 27

sequential design

Answer 27

a research design in which subjects from different age groups are studied repeatedly over a period of months or years.

Question 28

Microgenetic studies

Answer 28

a research design in which participants are studied intensively over a short period of time as developmental changes occur; attempts to specify how or why those changes occur.