Chapter 1: Theory and Research in Child Development

Question 1

What is child development?

Answer 1

An area of study devoted to understanding constancy and change from conception through adolescence.

Question 2

What is developmental science?

Answer 2

Devoted to understanding all changes we experience throughout the lifespan.

Question 3

What is a theory?

Answer 3

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

Question 4

What is continuous development?

Answer 4

A process of gradually adding more of the same type of skills that were there to begin with

Question 5

What is discontinuous development?

Answer 5

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

Question 6

What are stages?

Answer 6

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

Question 7

What are contexts?

Answer 7

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

Question 8

What is plasticity?

Answer 8

Open to change in response to influential experiences

Question 9

What is maturation?

Answer 9

A genetically determined, naturally unfolding course of growth

Question 10

How does the psychoanalytic perspective suggest children grow?

Answer 10

Children move through a series of stages in which they confront conflicts between biological drives and social expectations. How these conflicts are resolved determines the person’s ability to learn, get along with others and cope with anxiety.

Question 11

What is the psychosexual theory?

Answer 11

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

Question 12

What is the psychosocial theory?

Answer 12

Suggest that in addition to mediating between id impulses and superego demands, the ego makes a positive contribution to development, acquiring attitudes and skills that make the individual an active, contributing member of society.

Question 13

What is behaviourism?

Answer 13

Suggests that directly observable events - stimuli and responses - are the appropriate focus of study.

Question 14

What is social learning theory?

Answer 14

Emphasised modelling, otherwise known as imitation, as a powerful source of development.

Question 15

What is behaviour modification?

Answer 15

Consists of procedures that combine conditioning and modelling to eliminate undesirable behaviours and increase desirable responses.

Question 16

What is the cognitive developmental theory?

Answer 16

Children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore the world.

Question 17

What is the information processing perspective?

Answer 17

The human mind might also be viewed as a symbol-manipulating system through which information flows.

Question 18

What is developmental cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 18

Studies the relationship between changes in the brain and the developing child’s cognitive processing and behaviour patterns.

Question 19

What is ethology?

Answer 19

Concerned with the adaptive, or survival, value of behaviour and its evolutionary history.

Question 20

What is a sensitive period?

Answer 20

A time that is optimal for certain capacities to emerge because the individual is especially responsive to environmental influences

Question 21

What is evolutionary developmental psychology?

Answer 21

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

Question 22

What is the sociocultural theory?

Answer 22

Focuses on how culture - values, beliefs, customs and skills of a social group - is transmitted to the next generation.

Question 23

What is the ecological systems theory?

Answer 23

Explains how a child’s development is influenced by different layers of their environment, from immediate surroundings to broader social, cultural and policy-related factors.

Question 24

What is the microsystem?

Answer 24

Activities and interaction patterns in the child’s immediate surroundings ie. in school

Question 25

What is mesosystem?

Answer 25

Encompasses connections between microsystems, such as home, school etc ie. how parent’s relationships at home can affect children’s relationships at school

Question 26

What is the exosystem?

Answer 26

Social settings that do not contain children but still affect children’s experiences in immediate settings ie. parents work settings

Question 27

What is the macrosystem?

Answer 27

Consists of cultural values, laws, customs etc

Question 28

What is the dynamic systems perspective?

Answer 28

The child’s mind, body, and physical and social worlds form an integrated system that guides mastery of new skills.